


The Dead Detective

by DiscordantWords



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, BAMF John Watson, Fandom Trumps Hate, Jumpin Jack Flash Fusion, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-04-26 10:55:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14400681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscordantWords/pseuds/DiscordantWords
Summary: John Watson has spent the last three years of his life simply going through the motions. A chance encounter with a man claiming to be a stranded spy changes everything.





	1. Lazarus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anyawen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyawen/gifts).



> This is a gift for Anyawen, who bid on me in the Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction. I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Very (very) loosely inspired by the 1986 comedy "Jumpin' Jack Flash." The story line diverges dramatically, but the central idea--bored office worker exchanges messages with a stranded spy and winds up pulled into a world of intrigue--is borrowed from the film. 
> 
> I'm going to try for weekly updates, but I do not have a firm posting schedule set up.

*

It was cold. 

John opened his eyes, lay staring at the ceiling, breathing hard. He had been dreaming of Afghanistan. That didn't happen very often. Not anymore.

There had been blood on his hands, thick and black under the moonlight. He'd been shouting, trying to force life back into an unwilling body, hunched against a cold night wind. 

He shifted in his narrow bed, shivered. At some point in the night, the heat had gone out. 

He threw back the blanket, sat up. His skin prickled. He reached for his cane, grimaced at the cold metal against his palm. 

He moved across the room slowly, stretching the sleep from stiff muscles. He filled the little kettle he kept on his desk, plugged it in. 

He used the loo, washed his face with cold water, brushed his teeth. Forced himself to stare hard into the mirror, grounded himself in place and time.

He poured himself a mug of tea, sat down at his desk. Turned on his laptop. Rubbed absently at his shoulder, which had gone stiff and sore. 

He typed an angry email to his landlord about the heat. Then he deleted it and typed a polite one. Then he deleted that and wrote a third, angrier one. Hit send without allowing himself to change his mind again. 

The sun had just begun to peek in through the dirty window. 

John finished his tea. He set the empty mug back down on the desk, opened his drawer, looked at his gun. He did not touch it. After a long moment, he shut the drawer, stood up, and went to dress for work. 

*

He arrived ten minutes early for his shift, as he did every day. 

He went in through the side door, glanced into the waiting room at the empty chairs. Gave a little wave to the receptionist, but did not linger to chat. 

Sarah's door was closed, thank God for small favours. He slipped by without making too much noise, went down the hallway to his little office. He hung up his coat, propped his cane against the corner of his desk, sat down. The aging wheeled chair creaked and he leaned back, stared at the bland painting of trees that Sarah had insisted on hanging up. _Makes the patients feel more comfortable,_ she'd said. She'd been right, of course. It didn't make him like the painting any better. 

He turned on his computer, waited for it to boot up. 

Across the hall, he heard Sarah's door creak open. He wished, suddenly, that he'd closed his own. 

"Morning," Sarah said, popping her head in.

John nodded at her, flashed a tight smile. "Yep. Morning." 

She studied him for a moment, frowning a little, the way she almost always did when she looked at him. He was fairly sure she regretted hiring him, though she'd never actually said as much out loud. 

It was all right. He mostly regretted taking the position. Mostly. He found his shifts dreadfully boring, but the salary paid the rent on his flat and kept him in London, after all. And it wasn't as if injured ex-army doctors with mobility issues and intermittent hand tremors were exactly in the highest demand on the job market. 

"John—" she started. There was something soft in her voice, something like pity. He wondered, with an uncomfortable twinge, how much of his poor night's sleep showed in his face.

His computer finished booting up. He looked down at it, frowned with excess concentration, slowly typed in his password. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sarah shift where she stood in the doorway. After a long moment, she turned and left the room. 

He leaned back in his chair again, sighed. 

He was tired, hollowed out from the dream. He'd been doing better with that, he'd thought. He'd been sleeping through the night. 

_It's been three years,_ he told himself viciously. _You should be doing a bit better than occasionally sleeping through the night by now._

His hand, his traitorous, miserable hand, gave a feeble spasm against the desk. 

Others had begun to arrive. Down the hall, he could hear the quiet spaces beginning to fill with the rustle of clothing, muffled laughter and muted conversation.

He tuned them out. Pulled up his schedule. 

*

Two hours later, John took off his white coat and hung it on the hook behind his office door. He made his way slowly over to his desk, his leg stiff and his hand cramping. 

Sarah kept his schedules light. She'd done so for years. 

Two hours of coddling simple, uncomplicated patients. Elderly ladies with heavy perfume and sweet tremulous smiles, there for their annual exams. Whimpering children clinging to their anxious mums, there for their jabs. Colds and flus and sore throats. 

He listened to droning complaints, to screaming toddlers, to nervous chatty patients who felt compelled to unburden their entire life's story while he quietly conducted his examination. 

He worked quietly, quickly, and tried not to remember sunlight and chaos and dirt and noise, the steady competent press of his hands as he held torn flesh together, as he kept up a steady stream of conversation to take some poor screaming bastard's mind off of what was happening while he worked. 

He had been good at that, once. 

Not much call for that kind of doctoring in London. And, even if there were, not the kind of doctoring he could do with the unreliable tremor in his hand, the perpetual ache in his shoulder, the phantom pain in his uninjured leg. 

So it was the toddlers and the old ladies and the endless parade of sniffles and stomach viruses, it was the forced polite conversation and the embarrassing halting hitch in his step as he walked across the exam room. It was the well-meaning but grating inquiries of _How are you feeling Dr Watson? Leg giving you trouble in this weather?_ And then, when that was over and done with—

Well. When that was over and done with, he'd limp back to his office, log in to a messaging program, and provide internet medical consults from his desk. 

Sarah had been incredibly pleased with herself when she'd suggested it. She'd clearly thought she was doing him a favour. Keeping him off his feet. 

He could do it from home, even, she'd told him one morning when the air was grey and damp and his hand and been trembling, trembling, trembling, lukewarm coffee sloshing over the rim of his mug. If he had bad days. 

He'd hadn't the heart to tell her they were all bad days, that there had been nothing but bad days from the time he'd closed his eyes against the blood and the grit and the glare of sunlight and opened them again to a sterile white hospital ceiling and the steady beep of machines. 

They were all bad days, and every sore throat and sprained wrist and skin rash and headache only ever made it worse, not better. 

He looked at the clock. Looked back at his computer screen.

He thought he could do with some tea, perhaps, before this interminable second half of his day began. He started to stand up, grimacing at the effort it took. 

"Oh, Dr Watson—" Diane, the receptionist, froze halfway past his door. 

John paused, halfway out of his chair, his hand clenched around the handle of his cane. 

"Did you need something? I can get it for you," she said.

He stared at her for a moment, wondered not for the first time how it had come to this, how he of all people had found himself reduced to an object of such contemptible pity. 

"Just fancied a cuppa," he said. 

"I'll get it," she said, smiling at him. "You stay. Rest your leg." 

She disappeared down into the hallway without another word. 

John watched her go. "Damn my leg," he said quietly. 

*

The next two hours passed slowly. He'd receive the occasional notification of a call request, read his way through the patient's provided list of symptoms, and then open up a window and dial the patient for a face-to-face video consult. 

Most problems were simple, easy to diagnose, and handled within ten minutes or less. 

"I've been stung by a bee," a blank-faced young man told him. He held up his hand in front of the webcam, revealed a reddened patch of skin. 

"Do you have any known allergies?" he'd asked. 

"Cats," the man said. 

John had pinched his brow, had looked up at the ceiling. Had forced himself to remain polite while asking: "Do you have any known allergies to _bees?_ "

"No," he said. 

"Right," John said, under his breath. "Didn't feel like trying Google, then?" 

"What was that?"

"Nothing," John had said, smoothing his face back into what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He'd provided a boilerplate list of instructions for caring for a simple bee sting, and disconnected the call. 

"I have an itchy rash on my arms," a woman told him, scratching madly. 

"I have a sore throat." 

"I think I have a cold." 

"Does this look like pinkeye to you?" 

They all blurred together, bland worried faces, poorly lit and slightly pixelated through the webcam. Faces on the screen, reaching out from home, from work, from the corner café. About as far from the blazing hot immediacy of the battlefield as possible.

_I was someone, once,_ he thought, a little wildly, as he stared at his monitor. _I did things that mattered._

He could not fool himself into thinking that was still the case. 

"John?"

He startled, tore his gaze away from the screen. 

"Sarah," he said. Cleared his throat, shifted in his seat. "Did you need something?" 

She lingered in the doorway for just a moment too long for it to be unimportant. Then she sighed, stepped fully into his office, shut the door behind her. 

John watched her carefully, feeling uncomfortable, like a guilty schoolboy. His hand twitched and he clenched it reflexively. 

"You've been here for a while, now," Sarah said. She sat down in one of the stiff-backed chairs facing John's desk. Her gaze was very direct. "Almost three years." 

"Has it been that long?" he feigned surprise. 

She smiled faintly. It did not reach her eyes. Silence fell between them. 

"Do you have any idea what I want to talk to you about?" she asked finally. 

He shrugged. His heart kicked in his chest, some long-buried need to rise to a challenge. "To offer me a raise in pay?" 

Sarah breathed out through her teeth, shook her head. "John, you're always punctual." 

"Brilliant," John said. 

"And yet that remains the only—and I do mean the only—positive thing I can say about your employment." 

John's smile curdled. He cleared his throat. "How so?" 

Sarah watched him with steady eyes. "Do you even want to be here, John? You make no real effort to connect with the people around you—" 

"I didn't realize that after work drinks at the pub were mandatory." 

She shook her head, continued on undeterred. "Your care is competent—more than competent, but your demeanor—" 

He crossed his arms over his chest, raised his brows, waited for her to continue. 

"Your demeanor is frequently described as abrupt, unhelpful and lacking warmth." 

He scoffed, looked away. There was a guilty flush of heat climbing up the back of his neck. "Lacking warmth? That's a—" he took a breath, forced himself to look back at her. "I don't coddle them. That's all. I don't—" 

"Sometimes they need coddling," Sarah said. "Not all the time, but sometimes. And that's—" she stopped, pursed her lips. "Look, John—I understand that veterans sometimes have difficulty—"

"There is nothing _difficult_ about this," John said. "I've held men together on the battlefield, did you know that? I've saved lives. This is—this is soothing nervous mothers while I remove a splinter from a screaming toddler's index finger. It's a lot of things, but difficult is not one of them." 

Sarah frowned at him, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. He was reminded, quite strongly, of the day she'd interviewed him. She'd been pleasant and direct, and he'd been struck with the uncomfortable knowledge that she was exactly the type of woman he'd have gone for, once upon a time.

The John Watson he'd been before he'd taken a bullet to the shoulder, before he'd woken up in a hospital bed stripped of everything and everyone who had ever been important to him, _that_ John Watson would have flirted with her, tested the waters a bit. 

But he wasn't that John Watson, not anymore, and so he'd instead politely answered her questions and had accepted the position when she'd offered it. He'd needed the money. 

"You act as if you believe this work is beneath you," Sarah said. "Like you think you're better than this." 

"I am better than this," John said. He shut his eyes, shook his head. "No. Shit. I—" 

She let out a soft huff of laughter. "Well. Tell me how you really feel." 

"That's not—" he said. 

"I'm not unsympathetic," she said. "I remember when we first spoke, when I first brought you on. I told you this might be a bit mundane for you." 

He remembered. At the time, he'd sat in the chair across from her desk and thought that he might go mad from the endless numbing routine of it all, but he'd wanted to remain in London and in order to do so he'd needed money. And it wasn't like surgery or A&E positions would ever be an option for him. Not anymore.

"I know," he said, looking down at his hands. "I'm sorry." 

"Do you want to be here? Really? Be honest with me." 

John shrugged. "Where else would I want to be?" 

She fixed him with a long, level look. Her eyes were tired.

"I'll—" he sighed, straightened up in his chair. Nodded. "I'll try harder. I'm sorry. You're right." 

For a moment, it looked like she wanted to say more. She held his gaze, then nodded, stood. 

She shut the door quietly behind her as she left.

He stared at the back of the door for a long time. His office had gone quiet. 

The gentle chime of a message notification startled him, and he jerked his attention back to his computer monitor. 

The patient information was garbled, strings of illegible text. It happened, sometimes, he supposed. The perils of modern technology. 

"Shit," he said, and rubbed at the faint afternoon stubble on his jaw. _Abrupt,_ he thought. _Lacking warmth._

He plastered a smile on his face, angled the webcam so that he was fully in frame, and then opened the program. 

His patient was little more than an indistinct shadow, cloaked in darkness. 

John squinted at the screen, trying to make something out amidst the murky pixels. 

"Hello?" he said. "I think your connection might be—you might have a bad connection." 

There was a rustle, and something in the shadows moved. Or possibly moved. It was hard to tell. John sighed and reached out to close the window. 

The voice startled him. It was deep and sounded surprisingly close, as if the man were right on top of the microphone. "Wait." 

John waited. He squinted at the screen. 

The man was breathing. Hard, laboured puffs of breath that echoed against the microphone. 

"Oh for—" John again reached to shut the window. 

"You're a doctor," the man said, his voice pained. 

"Good observation, that," John said before he could help himself. He sighed, pressed his lips together, thought again about _lacking warmth._ "Sorry," he said. "Sorry. I'm Dr Watson. I—" 

"Yes, yes, fine," the man said. There was a flurry of movement, a vague disruption of the shadows. John had the impression of someone waving their hand in a dismissive manner in front of the camera. "Don't bother with all of that. I'm not in need of medical attention." 

"And I'm not a chat service," John said, once more moving to click out of the window. "Have a great day." 

"Wait!" 

John paused, his finger on the mouse. 

"I need you to do something for me." 

"Right," John said, his lips curling up in a brief unamused grin. "Not happening." 

He did not click out of the window. 

"I've found myself in need of assistance." 

"Well," John said, shifting in his seat. "I can offer you medical advice on certain—er, conditions. Or concerns. But if you're in need of emergency assistance, I think—" 

"Not that kind of assistance," the man said, although the pained hitch to his voice seemed to say otherwise. "I need you to deliver a message." 

John laughed, looked up at the ceiling. "Mate, come on. Deliver your own message. You're taking up valuable time here. I've got patients who—" 

"It's a matter of life and death," the man said. He shifted slightly, a little bit of light flooding in to the dim picture.

John squinted. The man was unkempt—long matted hair, gaunt dirty face. His eyes were bright, intense, disconcertingly pale. There was a dark patch on his forehead, leaking down from his hairline. Possibly blood, John thought. It was hard to say with the shadows. 

"Jesus," he said softly, under his breath. 

"Please," the man said.

"Not in need of medical attention?" John snorted, shook his head. "Right. What happened to you?" 

"It's not important." 

"I can help you." 

"Yes," the man said. "You can. By delivering my message." 

John pinched his brow. "And what, exactly, is your message?"

The man cleared his throat. Did not speak. 

John looked at the screen. Raised his brows. Waited. 

"Caught in unexpected rainstorm, umbrella required." 

That startled a laugh out of John, and he leaned back in his chair, grinned up at the ceiling. 

"Obviously it's in code," the man said. 

"Oh, obviously, yeah, of course," John agreed, still chuckling. He could not seem to stop. "And to who, exactly, am I meant to be delivering this message?" 

"Whom." 

"Did you seriously just—" John paused, shook his head, huffed out another laugh. "All right, fine. And to _whom_ am I meant to be delivering this message?" 

"The SIS building," the man said. "Vauxhall Cross. You know it?" 

"Vauxhall—" John blew out a breath, no longer laughing. "I know it. Of course I know it." 

"I need you to go there and deliver that message."

"SIS. You're talking about MI6. You're—" he stopped again, the brief hot rush of excitement fading as fast as it had come on. "You're having me on." 

"I assure you I am not." 

"You want me to waltz into MI6. And—and what—walk right up to the front desk? Ask for the department that specializes in coded messages?" 

"Well, I wouldn't phrase it quite like that, but essentially—" 

"Do you have a code name, then? Something fun to go along with your coded messages?"

The man did not respond, simply stared into the webcam. He swallowed. John watched his Adam's apple rise and fall. There were scratches on the side of the man's neck, crusted over with either dirt or dried blood, barely visible in the shadows. 

All of a sudden, John no longer felt like laughing. 

"Department C," the man said. "You're to ask for Department C."

"Right," John said. He swallowed. "And the name?" 

The man was silent for a long time. He did not blink.

"Lazarus," he said. "Tell them the message is from Lazarus."


	2. Message

*

John had not dreamed of Afghanistan. 

John had not dreamed of anything at all. He'd lain awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, thinking of the mysterious man and his mysterious messages. 

_Lazarus._

He was mad to even consider it. To even entertain the possibility that the man was telling the truth. 

He wasn't in a film. These kinds of things didn't happen to ordinary people. 

The sun had not yet begun to peek over the horizon when he gave up on sleep. He threw back the covers. The flat was still quite cold, and he dashed off another angry email to his landlord while he waited for the kettle to boil. 

He showered, shaved, dressed. His hands were steady as he buttoned his shirt. 

There was a strange wave of excitement building in the pit of his stomach, a nervous flutter, an electric tingle. It was far too early to leave for work. 

He gulped his tea down. 

He'd go in early, that was all. He'd go in early and catch up on some paperwork. There was always paperwork. 

He slipped on his coat, picked up his cane, went outside into the weak burgeoning daylight. The air was brisk. 

He did not turn and set off on his usual route, towards the tube. Instead he walked to the end of his street, hailed a cab. 

"Where to, mate?" the cabbie asked him, looking over his shoulder. 

"Vauxhall Cross," John said, and that was that. 

*

He did not linger, he did not loiter, and he did not give himself a moment to question what he was doing. He stepped from the cab to the kerb and marched straight through the doors of the SIS building with his shoulders squared and his head high. 

It was an impressive structure, all brick and marble and high ceilings. His shoes squeaked against the floor. 

The lobby was vast, sparsely furnished, and quite empty. 

He stood for a moment, breathed through his nose, flexed his hand. There was a bank of elevators against the far wall, and he started in that direction. 

"Just a moment." 

The voice—mild, just slightly impatient—startled him. He turned back. 

A startlingly attractive woman stood against the wall, just to the left of a potted plant. She had dark hair that framed her face in soft waves. Her eyes were fixed on a phone in her hand. 

He had walked right by her without noticing. 

"Unauthorized personnel are not permitted," she said, not lifting her gaze. She smiled a bit, as if this amused her. "You're in the wrong place, soldier." 

"Er—" John shifted where he stood, utterly thrown, not quite able to get a read on her. He looked down at the cane in his hand, realized it had not so much as touched the ground since he'd arrived. Chagrined, he leaned on it. "Right. Maybe you can help me." 

"Doubtful," she said, still not looking at him. 

"I was asked to deliver a message." 

"Mm," she said, utterly disinterested. She tapped something on her phone. 

"I'm looking for Department C?" 

"No such department," she said, and tapped something else into her phone.

"I was told—" 

"Seems like someone was having a laugh. Best run along now. Bye." 

He opened his mouth, shut it again. Breathed out hard through his nose. 

She did not look up. 

"Right," he said, finally. His face had flushed up hot. He turned back towards the door. His cane clicked against the marble. 

The damp London air was cool against his face.

John walked several steps away from the doors before stopping, bringing up one hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. 

_Seems like someone was having a laugh._

He was an idiot. 

What had he been thinking? Marching into the bloody SIS building on the word of a man who had barely even shown his face over a shoddy internet connection? 

He supposed he was lucky not to have been detained. Arrested. Questioned. Thrown in a dark cell, never to be seen or heard from again. 

His face burned with shame. He leaned on his cane, breathed hard. After a moment he straightened up, scanned the oncoming traffic for taxis, eager to put as much distance between himself and his foolishness as possible. 

There was a small chance—very small—that he could still make it to work on time. 

"Pardon me," said a soft, crisp voice to his left. 

He turned. 

There was an older woman standing at his shoulder. She was smartly dressed in a dark suit. She was not holding an umbrella. Her fair, greying hair seemed to wilt in the damp. Her eyes were shrewd. 

John raised his brows, nodded. 

"I believe," she said, speaking quietly, carefully, "I should be arranging to place you under arrest." 

John's mouth went dry. He looked down at the ground, then back at her. 

"I'd really rather you didn't," he said, trying for light and missing badly. 

"Well, you _have_ just attempted to gain access to MI6," she said. "Not something we take lightly. I'm sure you understand." 

He laughed, a sharp, unhappy sound. "Yeah. It—sorry. Sorry. Just someone's idea of a practical joke." 

"It's no laughing matter, I'm afraid," she said. She put her hand on his arm. Her grip was surprisingly firm. "I will need to know who sent you." 

John laughed again, the sound brittle and uncomfortable in his mouth. He shook his head. "Sorry. What?" 

"Practical jokes don't tend to play themselves," she said, and lifted her brows. "I'm quite willing to let you leave. You can walk away. Free and clear. But I will need to know the name of the person who sent you here." 

"I—"

"You said something about a message?" 

"Right," he said, stepping back. Her hand fell away from his arm. "Who are you, exactly?" 

She smiled. It was a faint, fleeting expression that did not reach her eyes. "Someone very interested in hearing the details of this message intended for a nonexistent department." She looked pointedly at John. "Lady Elizabeth Smallwood. And you are…?"

"John," he said. "John Watson. I—" 

"Well, John Watson," she said. "I believe you came here to deliver a message. Am I correct?" 

He nodded slowly, his heart kicking against his ribs. 

"Best get on with your mission then, don't you think?" 

He swallowed. "Right," he said. He squared his shoulders, tightened his grip on the handle of his cane. "Right. Um. I was asked to deliver a message from Lazarus. He said—he said to tell you that he's been caught in an unexpected rainstorm, and an umbrella is required." 

"Hm," she said. 

"Does that mean anything to you?"

"Not a thing," she said. She gave him another faint smile. "Good day." 

"Wait," he said. "But—"

She stepped back, melted into the crowds streaming past on the pavement. 

It was as if she'd never been there at all. 

*

Sarah was standing at his office door when he came in, limping badly, shaking rain off of his coat. 

"John," she said. 

"I know," he said, holding up his hand. "I know. I had—trouble. At my flat. My heat's not working." 

"You could have called."

"Battery's dead," he lied, and dropped into his desk chair. 

She made a sound, a frustrated, disappointed sound, and he thought of her telling him just yesterday: _John, you're always punctual._

He looked down, feeling a twinge of guilt. 

"Won't happen again," he said.

She was silent for an uncomfortable stretch of time. 

He looked up at her, lifted his brows. 

"All right," she said. She left his office without another word, shutting the door behind her. 

He sat for a moment, drumming his fingers against his leg. Then he reached forward, turned on his computer. 

As soon as it had booted he logged into the messaging program.

A message notification chimed immediately.

His waning adrenaline yielded to a satisfying rush of anger, and he opened the message without bothering to read the attached patient information. He half-hoped it would turn out to be some hapless bloke with a rash, something dull, something ordinary. Something to remind him that, whatever had happened to him that morning, it was not his life.

"Did you deliver my message?" 

That _voice._ Deep and low, hoarse, slightly pained. 

Lazarus. Or whoever he really was. 

John squinted at the screen. Lazarus seemed to be in the same poorly lit location as the day before. He'd cleaned himself up a bit. He'd washed the smear of dirt (blood, his mind offered helpfully) from his face, though his hair was still an unfortunate matted tangle. His eyes were quite bright, alert, intent. 

"Funny," John said. "Yeah. Good joke. So who put you up to this?" 

"Put me up to what? What are you talking about?"

"You must think I'm a complete idiot," John said. 

Lazarus opened his mouth.

John talked right over him. "Because I did what you asked. God knows why. Went right through the front door at the SIS building and asked for Department C." 

"And?" 

" _And_ Department C doesn't exist, you absolute—" John caught himself, breathed out hard through his nose. He'd clenched his teeth so tightly his jaw ached. 

_Lacking warmth,_ Sarah had said. 

"What happened next?" Lazarus asked.

"What happened next? I was nearly arrested, that's what happened." 

"But you weren't. Arrested." 

"No," John said. And then, petulantly: "But it was a near thing." 

"Not kidnapped? Threatened? Thrown in the back of a mysterious dark car?" 

John's mouth went dry. "No. Christ, is that what they do?"

"Occasionally." There was a note of mild amusement in his voice. 

"Well," John said. He shook his head, curled his mouth in a hard smile. "Thanks for the excitement, I suppose. Goodbye." 

He closed out of the message box with a furious stab of his finger against the mouse. 

Immediately, an incoming message chimed. 

"No," John said, but he opened the window anyway. 

"Doctor," Lazarus was right up close to the camera, close enough that John could see the sheen of sweat on his pale face. "I am still very much in need of your assistance."

" _No._ "

"Please," Lazarus said, and that mildly amused tone had dropped out of his voice entirely. He sounded tired, hoarse, a bit frightened. 

John shut his eyes, tilted his head back. 

He looked back at the screen. Cleared his throat. "Who are you?" 

"You already know."

"I really, really don't." 

"You've guessed it."

"Nope."

Lazarus let out a frustrated sound, somewhere between a groan and a sigh. _Good,_ John thought. At least he wasn't the only one getting annoyed. 

"I'm with MI6," Lazarus said finally.

John laughed, unamused. He looked up at the ceiling again, half-expecting to see a hidden camera tucked away in the corners somewhere. 

"Right," John said. "James Bond, yeah?" 

"Who? No," Lazarus said. He furrowed up his brow, frowned. "Never mind. I've been compromised. I've lost access to standard communication channels and I require immediate extraction." 

"Internet seems to be working. Can't you just—send an email?"

Another frustrated sound. "What part of _compromised_ did you not understand? My primary contact here is dead. Standard channels of communication are being watched. I need to contact my—my handler, but it can't be through a method that could be anticipated or expected." 

"Well. This is pretty unexpected, yeah," John said. He kept his tone light, but the back of his neck had begun to prickle. There was something almost devastatingly sincere in the man's face, in his voice.

Lazarus blew out a breath. He leaned forward, his gaze seeming to burn right through John's own. There were dark circles under his eyes. "I have been away from home for more than two years, Dr Watson. I have been—captured. And interrogated. And while I've managed to escape, I expect it's only a matter of time until I'm discovered. While I loathe asking for assistance, I find myself incapacitated and incapable of getting out on my own. So please—" his voice broke, and when he spoke again it was shaking with anger, "—FOR GOD'S SAKE tell me you delivered my message!"

John stared at him. A bead of sweat slipped down the back of his neck and carved an icy trail between his shoulder blades. The man was telling the truth. He was almost certain. 

"Yeah," John said, his voice soft. He held up his hand in what he hoped was a placating manner. He wanted badly to cup Lazarus's shaking shoulder, to take his pulse. To comfort. To _help._ "I delivered your message. Spoke to a—er—Lady Smallwood. She said she had no idea what it meant." 

Lazarus relaxed, his bright eyes slipping shut. "Good," he breathed. "That's very good. Thank you." 

John straightened up in his seat. "When you said interrogated—" 

"You're a soldier. You know what it means." 

"I _was_ a soldier," John said. He frowned. "How did you know that?"

"Posture," Lazarus said. His voice had grown weak, as if his earlier flare of anger had sapped away the entirety of his strength. "The way you—your shoulders. Obvious." 

John laughed, a little wonderingly, shook his head. "MI6. Right." 

"Thank you for your assistance, Dr Watson," Lazarus said. His eyes were serious, his voice sincere. "I don't suppose we'll be speaking again." 

"John," he said. He found himself quite unwilling to sever the connection between them. 

"John," Lazarus agreed. He offered a small smile. "Thank you, John." 

"Where are you?" John asked. Lazarus's eyes were slipping closed again. He seemed to be losing consciousness. 

"Mm," he said, shook his head. "Can't tell you that. Classified." 

"You need medical attention." 

"On its way. Thanks to you." 

"But—" 

The screen went dark. 

John scrubbed his hands over his face, sat back in his chair. He turned the word _interrogation_ over in his mind with a flicker of unease. 

_You're a soldier. You know what it means._

He knew very well what it meant in that context. He thought of the dirt and dried blood on the man's face the first time they'd spoken. Thought of the stiff movements and the pained voice. 

_I find myself incapacitated and cannot get out on my own._

"Christ," John said, and shut his eyes. 

It did not feel real. This sort of thing did not happen to him. Nothing happened to him. Nothing had happened to him for nearly three years, not since a sniper's bullet took his livelihood but not his life. 

The man's voice had faded, he'd relaxed so thoroughly once John had told him he'd delivered the message. He could not quite imagine the sheer force of will the man must have exerted to remain conscious, to secure his own safety. 

_Interrogation._

John shifted in his seat. He was uncomfortably restless, edgy. He wanted badly to ensure that Lazarus was all right.

A knock at his door, sharp, impatient, making him jump in his seat. 

"John?" Sarah's voice.

"Yeah, just a minute," he said. 

"There are people waiting—" she said. 

"Sorry. Just a minute." 

He stood up, slipped on his white coat. Looked back at his computer and breathed out hard through his teeth, steeling himself. Then he went out into the hall.

*

Two hours later he said goodbye to his final patient of the morning and went down the hall to his office. The door was shut and he paused, tried to recall if he had pulled it closed after him earlier. He did not think he had. 

He opened the door. Stopped.

There was a man standing behind his desk, bending over to examine the computer. He straightened as the door creaked open, offered a large smile. 

"Hi—"

"What are you doing in here?" John stepped into the room, crossed his arms. 

"Didn't mean to startle you," the man said. He moved around the desk, held out his hand, still smiling. His voice was mild, with a soft Irish lilt.

John did not take his hand. "I asked you a question." 

"Jim," the man said. He shrugged, an exaggerated motion that shifted his thin shoulders under his t-shirt. "From IT." 

"All right, Jim from IT," John said. "I'll ask again. What are you doing in my office?" 

"Routine check on all the computers in the building," Jim said. His smile seemed oddly fixed on his face. He was chewing gum, and snapped it loudly with his back teeth. "We received reports that there's a nasty virus going around." 

"Haven't heard anything about it," John said. A chill was working its way down his spine. 

Jim had retreated to lean back against the desk, was watching him with an amused expression. 

"No?" he asked. He shook his head, pursed his lips. "No problems? Nothing?" 

"Nothing at all," John said. "And this isn't a good time. I've got patients. If you'd like to schedule something with our receptionist, I can—" 

"Mm, bad idea. Might be too late by then." 

"There's nothing wrong with my computer." 

"Are you sure?" Jim pushed off of the edge of the desk, moved closer. There was something unnerving about his flat-eyed stare. "A good virus is subtle. Little more than a whisper on the wind. You might not even realize." 

John squared his shoulders, deliberately did not take a step back. "Pretty sure everything's fine, mate." 

"Oh, well, one knows what to look for—" Jim said. He snapped his gum again, went on staring at John with those dead eyes. "If you've done this for as long as I have. Some people like to think of it as casting out a net, but I prefer to think of it is a web. Gossamer strands. Delicate." 

Jim had stepped very close, his breath puffing against John's cheek. 

John cleared his throat, did not move away. 

Jim shut his eyes, breathed in deeply. "Intricate. And if you know it well enough, you can feel _everything._ All those little twitches, all those tiny tugs. Something caught up and flailing, disrupting all of that careful, careful work. And then, when the time is right—" he stepped back, snapped his gum loudly, grinned. It did not reach his eyes. "I strike."

"Great," John said, and clapped his hands together. "That's very helpful—er—I'll be sure to give you a call if anything comes up." 

Jim snapped his gum one more time, gave another lazy shrug of his shoulders. His eyes were hard. 

"Your loss," he said, slipping around John and out the door. 

John watched him go, then breathed out hard, clenched his fists by his side. "Christ," he said. 

He shut the door, stood with his hand pressed against it for a moment. 

Surely he was reading too much into things. His conversations with Lazarus had him paranoid, suspecting everyone and everything. He was ascribing malicious intent to an IT tech who was probably just a bit socially awkward. He was—

He was moving before he even realized what he was going to do, hurrying towards the desk and reaching out to touch the computer. It was the same silver laptop that Sarah had issued when she'd hired him, back when she'd smiled and said _You can do your consults from home some days, if that's more convenient for you._

He'd never taken it home. Instead he'd clung to the dreary routine of going in to work, of settling into the squeaky chair in his office with its featureless walls and bland paintings. He'd left it set up, a permanent fixture on his desk. 

Now he grappled with the cables connecting it to its dock and the large flat screen monitor, prying them loose, pulling the laptop across the desk towards him, resisting the urge to clutch it to his chest like a prize. 

He was overreacting. He knew he was overreacting. 

He thought of how Lady Smallwood had appeared at his side in the weak morning sunlight, thought of their odd exchange there on the street corner. The way that her name seemed to mean something to Lazarus. Lazarus, who had been compromised. Lazarus, who had been _interrogated._

Definitely overreacting. 

He slipped the laptop into his bag. Shrugged out of his white lab coat and traded it for the warm coat on the hook behind his door. 

"Sarah," he said, going back out into the hall.

She looked up from behind her desk, startled. 

"I'm going to do my consults from home," he said. "I've—I need to—"

"All right," she said, shrugging. He had the distinct impression that she'd had enough of him for one day. 

"Thanks," he said. "Er—see you tomorrow." 

"John?" 

He paused, raised his brows. 

"Are you all right?" 

"Fine, yeah." 

"Your cane," she said. Her voice was soft.

_No need to point it out,_ he thought, before he realized that he was not holding it. He blinked, looked down at his own two feet, his own steady legs. He could not recall when he'd had it last. 

"I—" he said. 

She stared at him. He could not read her expression. 

"Yeah," he said, looking away. "I'll see you tomorrow." 

He went down the hall without waiting for her to respond. The laptop was a reassuring weight in the bag slung over his shoulder.


	3. Complications

*

John startled awake at the sound of loud voices in the hallway, jerking up from the scratched wooden surface of his desk. He blinked in the morning light, disoriented, his neck a stiff mess of knotted agony. The laptop he'd taken from work was open next to him, the screen dark. 

He had been waiting to hear from Lazarus. He must have fallen asleep, stayed there all night. 

In the hall, the voices coalesced into laughter, fading, retreating. A door slammed. 

His heart rate slowed as he took a deep breath, then another. 

He pulled the laptop towards him and woke up the screen. He scrubbed at his face with the palm of his hand, looked at the messaging program he'd left open overnight. 

Nothing. 

Surely that was a good thing. Surely that meant Lazarus had got wherever it was that he needed to go, that he'd been rescued or extracted or whatever the preferred terminology was for stranded spies. 

_I don't suppose we'll be speaking again,_ Lazarus had said. 

That was that. He was deluding himself if he expected anything more to come of it. 

John stood up slowly, mindful of his aching back. He stretched, groaned as he worked out the stiffness in his neck. 

He glanced at the clock.

Christ. He would have to hurry in order to make it to work on time. He was fairly sure Sarah would not hesitate to sack him if he could not even manage to remain punctual. 

He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, stepped in for a hasty wash. The water that pelted against his face and shoulders was cold, and he thought of Lazarus and his interrogation, the dark streak of drying blood that had oozed from beneath his tousled hair. He wondered what other injuries might have been hidden by the shadows. 

It did him no good to dwell on it. There was nothing more he could do. Taking another trip to the SIS building would be far more likely to result in arrest than answers. 

He turned off the water. Toweled himself off. Dressed quickly and slung his laptop bag over his shoulder. He thought of Jim from IT with his flat eyes and uncomfortable smile. 

He tucked his gun into the back of his trousers. Just in case.

The London sky was grey and grim. Rain threatened. He kept his head down as he walked. 

*

John pushed through the glass door with five minutes to spare. He gave a distracted wave to the receptionist as he hurried through the waiting room. 

He went down the hall, into his office, shut the door behind him. Let out a little huff of breath at the sight of his cane, leaning up against the desk where he'd left it the night before. 

Years of therapy. And all it took was a dodgy internet connection and an overreaction to a pushy IT tech. Amazing. 

He picked up the cane and looked at it for a moment, smiled. Set it aside. Unpacked his laptop and set about reconnecting it to the dock. 

There was a firm knock at his door. Sarah opened it without waiting for him to respond.

"John." She stepped into the room. On her heels was a smiling blonde in a red cardigan. 

"Hm?" He turned to face her. He was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the gun at his back, the metal warm against his skin. He wondered if the bulge at the back of his shirt was obvious. He had begun to sweat.

"You haven't met Mary yet," Sarah said.

"You must be Dr Watson," the blonde—Mary, clearly—said, holding out her hand. "I'm looking forward to working with you." 

"Right," John said, blinking. He extended his hand. "Er—Mary. Yes. Hello." 

"You did remember that today was Mary's first day, right?" Sarah asked.

"Of course, yeah," John lied. He pumped Mary's hand once, twice, let it go. She had a firm grip.

"Covering for Diane's maternity leave," Sarah added. There was something sharp in her voice. 

"Right," John said. "Yeah, of course. Diane. Having a boy, yeah?" 

"Girl," Sarah said. 

He supposed he ought to have known that. There had been a party. Pink streamers and such. Little cakes. He'd tuned most of it out. 

He cleared his throat, offered a bland smile. Mary looked at him with something wickedly mirthful dancing in her eyes, as if she found the stifling awkwardness in the room more amusing than uncomfortable.

"I was worried we might not get to chat," Mary said, still smiling. "You sort of rushed right by me on your way in." 

He thought of the distracted wave he'd aimed at the reception desk as he'd arrived. Winced. He hadn't even noticed.

Sarah stared at him, looking very much like she was biting back words. 

"Sorry about that," John said. "I just—busy schedule today. Didn't want to leave anyone waiting." 

Sarah opened her mouth.

"You can buy me a coffee later to make up for it," Mary said. She winked. "And I'll expect, at the bare minimum, a _good morning, Mary_ every day from now on. With eye contact." 

"Er," John said.

Mary grinned, a crooked impish smile, and tilted her head slightly. It was an endearing smile, and he found himself smiling back. He had the distinct impression that he was being flirted with, which hadn't happened in a very long time. 

"Kidding on the greeting," Mary said. "Very serious about the coffee." 

"It's good to have your priorities in order," John said. 

"Well," Mary said, and she looked down at the ground for a moment before lifting her gaze back to meet his. "I'm looking forward to working with you. Which I said already. But I suppose that's the sort of thing worth saying again." 

"So nice you said it twice," John said, and her answering smile sparked something in his chest he'd thought long extinguished. 

"I'll be waiting on that coffee, Dr Watson," Mary said over her shoulder as she and Sarah left the room. 

John stared after them for a moment, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He'd flirted with her automatically, the way he used to, years ago. That was—that was something. 

He looked again at his cane, shook his head. He felt more like himself than he had in ages. If he ever heard from Lazarus again, he supposed he owed him a hearty thanks. Maybe he'd be allowed to buy him a beer. He wouldn't mind hearing about the inner workings of MI6. 

He shook his head again, laughed to himself. Sat down at his desk and pulled up the messaging program. 

It couldn't hurt to check. One more time. Just in case. 

A message alert chimed almost immediately. John's heart thudded against his ribs as he hastily clicked to open it. 

"John," Lazarus said.

John shut his eyes, breathed out. "Yeah," he said. He held up his hand. "Just—" 

He stood, shut his office door. Locked it. Hurried back to his desk. 

"Are you all right? What happened?" he asked. He squinted at the screen. Lazarus was again shrouded in shadows. He looked unwell, pinched. 

"Something's wrong," Lazarus said. "It's worse than I feared. My unit at MI6 has been compromised. They must have someone on the inside." 

"What? What are you—" John lowered his voice, cleared his throat. "Compromised? Compromised how?"

"Your message should have triggered an immediate extraction," Lazarus said. "Clearly, that didn't happen. There's a leak somewhere." 

"But—" John hesitated, squinted at the screen. "Is that blood? On your shirt?" 

"Not mine," Lazarus said. He waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about that." 

"Someone came for you, didn't they?" John said, his mouth dry. "That's why you think MI6 has been compromised. Someone came for you and they weren't there to help." 

"Not a bad deduction," Lazarus said. "I need—" 

"Christ, so the person I spoke with—" 

"I believe Lady Smallwood to be above reproach, but find myself forced to consider the possibility," Lazarus said. "The list of potential leaks is—worryingly small." 

"How badly are you injured?" 

"Not important—"

"It bloody well _is_ important," John said. "Yesterday when we spoke, you said you needed help. How badly are you injured?" 

"I need you to—" 

"How. Badly. Injured." 

Lazarus stopped speaking, took a breath. John watched the unsteady rise of his chest. 

"Blood loss," Lazarus said. "Not significant. Some degree of dehydration and malnutrition, though I've since acquired a source of fresh water and limited rations. Lacerations to my upper back and arms. I fear infection has begun to set in. I was not held under particularly sanitary conditions. I've cleaned the wounds as best I can, but I'm limited by my range of motion." 

"Fever?" 

"Slowly climbing," Lazarus said. "Judging by the symptoms." 

"In other words, you need to get out of there," John said quietly, thinking about the kind of interrogation that led to lacerations on the back and upper arms. "And it's becoming more urgent every day." 

"Essentially, yes." 

"Tell me what you need me to do." 

Lazarus looked into the camera for a moment. His eyes were very pale, his gaze steady. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his face. 

"I'll need to go outside of standard protocol. There are associates of mine. That I trust. They should be able to—if you can reach them. They should be able to put the right people in motion." 

"Who are they? Where can I find them?" 

Lazarus smiled. It emerged more like a grimace. "I'll need you to go to my flat." 

John barked a laugh. "Your flat? You can't just—give me a name and a phone number?" 

"Your phone is almost certainly being tapped by now, John." 

"Oh," John said. "Great. Yeah. Fantastic." 

"There's a phone," Lazarus said. "Secure. Heavy encryption." 

"And this phone is at your flat." 

"Yes. It's password protected, so you'll need to be clever." 

John laughed again, humourless. "Not sure this is my area, mate. I'm not MI6." 

"You've done well so far." 

"I'll see what I can do," John said. "Your flat. Where is it?" 

"Central London," Lazarus said. "221B Baker Street." 

"Mm," John said, considering the area. "Nice. And I'm just to break in?"

"Landlady's on extended holiday. The building should be empty." 

"You just assume that lock-picking is one of my skills? I'm a doctor." 

"And a soldier." 

"Right," John said, with a humourless little laugh. "And—can I—is there some way for me to reach you? If I need to?" 

"I'll be in touch. Find the phone and you'll find me," Lazarus said. He started to move away from the screen, then hesitated. "And. Um. Thank you. This is—appreciated." 

He disconnected before John could respond. 

John shut his eyes, pinched his brow with his thumb and forefinger. Thought of lacerations and infections and fevers, and how quickly the situation could go badly. 

Baker Street. All right, then. 

He stood up, already reaching for the back of the laptop, disconnecting it from its dock once again. He slid it into his bag. Picked up his coat. Left his cane. 

"John?" Sarah stopped walking as he passed her in the hall.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I really—I _am_ sorry. Something's come up."

He kept walking, not giving her a chance to speak. Mary looked up from the reception desk as he hurried past. 

"Oh, Dr Watson—" she said. 

"We'll have to do that coffee another day," he said. He pushed through the door, went out into the chill air. It had begun to rain, fat drops pelting against his shoulders. 

He heard the door open and shut behind him, hasty footsteps on the pavement. He turned, expecting Sarah. 

Mary smiled back at him. 

He sighed. "Sorry," he said. "I have a—it's a bit of an emergency." 

"Yeah, no, I get it. You doctors. Always rushing off to save the world," she grinned as she spoke, but the tilt of her head and the ironic twist of her voice made her seem less than earnest. 

"We'll talk tomorrow," he said. Assuming he still had a job.

"Sure, yeah," Mary said. She bit her lip. "But er—if you'd like to talk before then—?" 

She held out a folded slip of paper. He took it, feeling a bit like a schoolboy caught passing notes. 

Mary had printed a phone number. Her handwriting was neat. She'd signed her name with a bit of a flourish, adding a little smiley face underneath. 

"Just in case you feel like coffee later," she said. She smiled again, and then turned around without waiting for him to respond. 

He watched the door swing shut behind her. Shook his head, bemused. Then he took his wallet out of his pocket, slipped her little note inside.

*

The entrance to 221B Baker Street was right next to a charming little café with a red awning. John hesitated at the door, looking both ways, but the few people out on the pavement braving the rain had their heads down or buried under heavy umbrellas, shoulders hunched against the weather. No one paid him any mind. 

The lock was old-fashioned, and not difficult to pick. He went inside and shut the door against the street noise behind him, let out a relieved breath. 

He slipped his gun out from his waistband. It was a comfortable, familiar weight in his hand. 

There were stairs to his left, ascending to the upstairs flat. He ignored them for a moment, walked down a narrow hallway. There was a small wooden table and a chair against the wall. The entire place smelled musty, disused. He stopped at a closed door at the end of the hall. A little metal plate screwed into the wood identified it as _A._

Right. Flat B must be the upstairs one, then. 

He listened at the door to A for a moment longer. When he was satisfied that he heard no furtive movement within, he turned away, went up the stairs. 

John's blood pulsed in his veins. His muscles were tensed, coiled. He felt ready for anything. He felt the corner of his mouth curl up into a small smile as he climbed. His hand tightened where it gripped his gun.

The door to Flat B was open. He paused in the doorframe, looked around. 

It was—not exactly what he'd been expecting. 

He supposed, if anyone had asked him, he'd have assumed someone working with MI6 would live somewhere modern. Sleek. Posh. Surrounded by the latest technology. The flat he'd just entered looked more like the home of an eccentric artist, or actor, or—his gaze caught on what appeared to be a human skull grinning from the mantel—an absolute madman. 

Brilliant. 

He went further into the flat, noted the bold, clashing wallpaper choices, the mismatched furniture, the jumble of laboratory equipment on the kitchen table, the thick layer of dust coating it all. The flat smelled faintly of must and old books, the overall effect not entirely unpleasant. 

There was a smiling face spray painted in vivid yellow over the sofa. Several small throwing knives were embedded in it, patterned wallpaper peeling away at the edges.

He stared for a moment, turned back to the bookshelf. 

"Who _are_ you?" he mused out loud, running a finger over the spine of several obscure medical texts. 

He went through the kitchen and down a short hallway, paused to push open the first door he passed. A bathroom, small, nondescript. The door at the end of the hall opened up to a large bedroom, startlingly neat and sparsely decorated given the state of the rest of the flat. 

He smiled at the sight of a framed periodic table on the wall. There was a tall wardrobe opposite the door, and he went to it, tugged it open. The hinges squealed. John paused, waited. He heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing. 

Satisfied that he was alone, he slipped the gun back into his waistband, tugged his shirt down. 

Inside the wardrobe hung a neat row of bespoke suits. Next to them, an assortment of slim shirts in jewel tones. John reached out and touched one of the sleeves. Good material. 

That seemed a bit more like what he'd been expecting. More James Bond, less mad chemist. 

He shut the wardrobe, gave one last look around, made his way back into the chaotic clutter of the sitting room. 

Lazarus had not told him where he could find the phone. He was at a bit of a loss as to where to even begin looking. 

He went back to the bookshelf, with its jumbled assortment of curiosities. There was a stack of mail pinned to the crowded mantel with a large and rather alarming knife. He tugged the knife free, riffled through the letters. They were all addressed to Sherlock Holmes. 

"Sherlock," he said out loud, rolling the name around in his mouth. It was about as strange as Lazarus. The name was vaguely familiar, tugging at something in the back of his mind, as if he should know it. As if he'd heard it before. 

He set his laptop bag down on the coffee table, flexed his shoulder. 

There was a small desk by the window, piled with stacks of yellowed papers and more books. He glanced briefly through the papers—a dense and inexplicable collection of notes, calculations and what appeared to be hand-written sheet music. 

John found himself smiling. Lazarus— _Sherlock—_ seemed almost larger than life. There was nothing bland or predictable about him. John very much wanted to meet him, to see him in person, walking and talking and filling his own natural habitat. There was something strangely endearing about the mess.

And Lazarus would not be doing much walking and talking at all if John didn't hurry the hell up and get him help. The thought was sobering, and he yanked open the first desk drawer. 

Yellowed papers, vials of some long-dried substance, a tin of human teeth and what appeared to be a desiccated human ear. John slammed the drawer shut again. Tried the second one. 

A spring-loaded bear trap.

"Christ!" He jerked his hand away just in time, stood up, breathing hard.

That was—less endearing.

In the top drawer he found it, folded up in a plastic evidence bag. The phone was heavy, sleek, a brand he'd never heard of. It looked expensive, the kind of thing that the overly rich bought up because they had nothing better to spend their money on. 

He slipped it out of the evidence bag, pressed the power key. 

Dead, of course. Lazarus _had_ said he'd been away for two years. John wondered what sort of rent he paid on the place, what it must cost to maintain a flat in central London when one was away for years at a time. 

He hunted around for a power cord, plugged it in. 

While waiting for it to charge, he booted up his laptop, sat down on the worn leather sofa. It was surprisingly comfortable. 

He typed _Sherlock Holmes_ into his search bar, scrolled through the results. 

"Shit," he said. 

He remembered, now, where he'd heard the name. 

Two years back, a reporter had uncovered a vein of corruption within New Scotland Yard. She'd published a series of articles alleging that police incompetence had led to an overreliance on outside consultants—namely one unauthorized individual, who was ultimately accused of committing several of the crimes he'd been tapped to solve. 

She'd named the mystery consultant in the final article. Sherlock Holmes. 

The next day, the man in question had thrown himself from the top of Barts Hospital. Guilt, the newspapers said. Shame. Unwillingness to face up to what he'd done. 

It had been tragic. Embarrassing. Scotland Yard had cleared house, had sacked a number of investigators in high level positions. There had been loads of public promises to win back the public's trust. 

John clicked through the articles, looked at the photos. There were several shots of Sherlock Holmes, looking tall and haughty and unapproachable, the collar of his greatcoat turned up. He was scowling, always scowling. 

John reached out with his index finger, touched the pale face through the screen. Handsome bloke, if a bit dour. It was difficult to reconcile the man in the photographs with Lazarus, bedraggled and dirty and cloaked in shadows. 

Away from home for two years, Lazarus had told him. If he was telling the truth about who he was, he hadn't just been gone for two years, he'd been _dead._ Had he left behind a family? Friends? A lover? 

In a flat overflowing with personality, there were not very many personal effects. No photographs.

It was strangely lonely, John thought. 

Perhaps that was just the sort of life one lived as a spy. Even if it wasn't all as thrilling as films would have him believe, he thought it fair to assume MI6 was not particularly compatible with domesticity or long term relationships. 

He clicked through a few more photographs, then stood up and checked the phone, pleased to see that the battery had nearly charged. He unplugged it, turned it on. 

**I AM LOCKED** the screen proclaimed. 

"Shit," he said again, tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling. "Would it have killed you to give me a bit more to go on?" 

His voice was overloud in the heavy vacant quiet of the flat. He swallowed, suddenly conscious of the sound of his own breathing, his heartbeat in his chest. 

_Be clever,_ Lazarus had said. 

John did not feel particularly clever. 

There was too much to look at, the strange and macabre cluttered up on shelves and against the walls, demanding his attention. One oddity after another, all of which might hold some clue, some bit of information he could use. Things that might mean everything, or nothing, and no way to tell for sure. 

He _liked_ it. He liked Sherlock Holmes' weird flat with its weird décor. It was about as far from the drab blandness of his own rooms as he could get. 

He liked it, but it was distracting. He could spend hours there, (carefully) perusing the drawers and shelves. Discovering what made Sherlock Holmes tick. And none of that would get him any closer to bringing the man home safely. 

There was a distinct possibility that Lazarus could die, alone and injured and frightened, trembling with fever, far from home and without a friend by his side. 

He couldn't—he couldn't allow that to happen. 

He turned the phone off, slipped it into his pocket. Packed up his laptop and slung the bag once more over his shoulder. Gave one last look around the flat before hurrying down the stairs and back out into the damp. 

He ducked his head against the persistent drizzling rain and waved down a cab, slid gratefully into the back seat of the first one that pulled up along the kerb. 

"Thanks, mate," he said, settling back into the worn seat.

"Happy to help," the cabbie said. His voice was soft, lilting. Familiar. 

John sat up straight. 

The eyes that met his in the rear view mirror were dark, flat, empty.

"I _do_ love surprises," Jim said, and stepped on the gas.


	4. Code

*

"I'd tell you a story," Jim said, his voice cheerful and conversational as he accelerated along Baker Street. "But you didn't seem to want to listen last time. _Very_ rude." 

John bolted upright in his seat, his hand clenching against his thigh. He'd been right. He'd been bloody _right,_ there had been something off about the man, he hadn't just been paranoid or fanciful or—

"So I think the time for talking is over," Jim said. "Sorry!" 

"What do you want?" 

"Your laptop, for starters," Jim said. "And before you complain—I _tried_ to do this the easy way. Guess I'll just have to kill you instead." He made an exaggerated sad face into the rear view mirror. 

"Yeah, I don't think I like that plan." John kept an eye on Jim in the mirror as he pulled his laptop bag closer against his side. He slipped his hand behind it, slid his fingers slowly along his waistband until he was able to close his hand around his gun where it nestled against the small of his back. 

"Too bad, so sad, not really in the mood for conversation," Jim said, sing-song, dismissive. 

"Good," John said. He pulled out his gun and flicked off the safety in one smooth motion. He pressed it against the back of Jim's head, not particularly gently. "I'm not feeling too chatty either. Pull over."

Jim jerked the steering wheel, but John was ready for that, bracing one leg up against the door as he swayed with the cab. His hand did not waver. 

"Ooh," Jim said. Instead of fear, there was an odd sort of excitement in his voice. "This, I wasn't expecting. And, as I might have mentioned earlier, I _love_ surprises."

He let go of the wheel, twisting around to grab for the gun over the back of his seat. John threw himself backwards out of his reach as the cab hurtled up onto the pavement, jolting, jostling. There was a brief glimpse of panicked faces through the window and then—

_Impact._

The glass shattered. It rained in on him as he was flung forward. He covered his head, his bad shoulder bashing against the seat in front of him. 

For a moment, everything was still. His ears rang. 

Outside, someone was shouting. It seemed very distant, far away. Indistinct.

He pushed himself up off of the floor, grasping onto the bench seat with shaking hands. There were bits of broken glass ground into the meat of his palms, and he swiped at them.

The hinges squealed as he pushed out through the dented door. Rain pelted down against his face. He grabbed for his laptop bag, dragging it along with him. 

Voices. 

"Did you—" 

"I called—" 

"Is everyone—" 

He ignored them, got slowly to his feet. His head was ringing. Jim. That fucking maniac. Where was—?

"I'll take that," Jim said from somewhere behind him. The cheer had gone out of his voice. He grabbed at the bag, yanking it out of John's grasp. 

John whirled, lunging for it, his fingers hooking around the strap, jerked it back. 

"Who are you?" There was blood on Jim's face. It trickled, dark and wet, along his forehead, angling across his temple, dribbling down his cheek. His voice had gone flat, furious. "How are you talking to him? How are you doing this? He's supposed to be DEAD!" 

John dug in, pulled. His shoulder ached. His hand crept into the bag, closed around the hard edge of the laptop. Someone was shouting something behind him. 

Jim yanked at the bag again. 

"Let it go and I might let you live," Jim said. 

The stitching where the strap met the bag had begun to fray. John threw himself backwards, the bag giving way, tearing as he toppled, the laptop firm in his grasp. 

Jim fell forward with him, his dead eyes manic, his face contorted. His breath was hot and fast against John's face.

A sound like thunder, rumbling, building. Lorry, John realized belatedly. Traveling fast.

He didn't know if Jim could access Lazarus's location some other way. But he wanted the laptop, wanted it badly enough to hunt John down across London for it. Badly enough to kill for it. 

He propped himself up on one elbow, took a great gasping breath, and flung the laptop and bag into the street. The lorry, brakes squealing, thundered over it, crushing it beneath one large wheel. 

John flopped back onto the pavement, breathing hard. The rain was hard against his face. He thought he might be laughing. Or sobbing. Or screaming. It was hard to tell. 

"That was stupid," Jim said. He got to his feet. His lip had split in their scuffle, and fresh blood dribbled down his chin. His eyes were hard. "That was the stupidest thing you could have possibly done." 

A crowd had begun to gather around them. There were sirens, loud, growing louder. 

Jim turned and ran. 

Someone reached out a hand for John. He ignored it, pushed himself up from the ground. He staggered back towards the crumpled taxi, looked in the back. His gun was on the floor under the seat. He slipped it back into his waistband under the guise of stooping to catch his breath. 

Not much of a guise. His vision had gone dark around the edges. He put his hands on his knees. 

He did not look back at the street, at the mangled remains of his bag, the shattered shards of his laptop. 

_Sorry, Sherlock,_ he thought. He took another breath, shut his eyes. 

Someone put their hand on his shoulder, asked if he was all right. 

He laughed, the sound flat and humourless. "No," he said. "I don't think so." 

*

A woman in a police jacket approached as John was being fussed over by the medic. She waited, arms crossed, as a bandage was applied to the cut on his forehead. 

He shifted where he sat, painfully conscious of the gun tucked into his waistband. 

"Anything else—" 

"No," he said, ducking his head away from the medic's persistent fingers. "No, I'm fine. Thank you. But I'm fine." 

The medic shrugged, left him be. 

The woman waited a moment, then stepped forward. She slipped a slim notepad out of her coat pocket. 

"Mind if I ask you a few questions?" 

He looked at her. Offered a half smile. "Anyone ever say yes?" 

She raised her brows. 

"That they mind," he added. 

"People say all sorts of things," she said. 

"Right," he said. He looked over her shoulder at the wreckage. The street had been cordoned off, but the scene had acquired more than its fair share of onlookers. He looked back at her, shrugged, smiled again. "Sure." 

"Sergeant Sally Donovan," she said. She held out her hand. 

He shook it. "John Watson." 

"Can you tell me what happened here?" 

He held her gaze. Breathed out hard through his nose. 

_Careful,_ he thought. 

"Took a taxi. The driver was—erratic."

"Erratic how?" 

He looked up at the sky. The rain had stopped. He was not sure when that had happened.

"You know," he said. "Weaving. Speeding. I asked him to pull over." 

"Why?" 

"Because I wanted to get out," he said, with a sharp little laugh. "Wouldn't you?" 

She looked at him, said nothing. 

"Then what happened?" 

"He drove up onto the kerb," John said. "Hit that building there. Climbed out and tried to steal my laptop." 

She turned, looked over her shoulder into the street. He did not follow her gaze. "Your laptop. That's the—?" 

"Yeah," John said. "There was a bit of a struggle and it—well. Went under a lorry." 

"I see," she said, in a tone of voice that implied she very much did not. "Mr Watson—" 

"Doctor," he said. Smiled. He'd been told, a long time ago, that his smile was charming. He hoped that was still the case. 

"Dr Watson—" she corrected smoothly, "—had you ever seen this man before?" 

"The cabbie?" He raised his brows, shook his head. "No, never. Why?" 

"Any reason to believe he targeted you? Specifically? Or your laptop?" 

He laughed again, a little disbelievingly. "Targeted me? I just assumed—well. You know. Drugs. Or something. People act weird. When they're high. Don't they?" 

Donovan frowned at him. "Well, you're the doctor. You tell me." 

He looked at her, wondered if he should try smiling again. It did not seem to be getting him anywhere. 

"Look he—we didn't have a conversation. I got in the taxi and this maniac tried to kill me. I don't know what I did—if I did something to piss him off, or if—I was just trying to go home." 

She held his gaze for a moment longer. Then she nodded, wrote something in her notebook. "I'm going to need contact information. In case we have any further questions." 

"Sure," he said. He shifted where he sat. His gun dug into his back. He was very aware of the phone, the damnable locked phone, resting heavy in his pocket. 

"Is there someone I can call for you?" Donovan asked. "To take you home?" 

He almost laughed, mercifully choked it back. The only person he wanted to talk to was on the other end of a phone he could not access. Far away. Injured. Dying. And there was nothing at all he could do about it. 

He'd thrown his last chance under the wheels of a speeding lorry. 

"Ah—" he said, shaking his head. 

There was no one. He had no friends. He'd managed to isolate himself, to alienate everyone in his life. No one would want—

He hesitated, his mind snagging suddenly on a flirtatious smile.

_If you'd like to talk before then?_

He slipped his wallet out of his pocket, opened it. Looked at the little square of paper folded neatly inside. 

*

"John!" Mary called, and her voice was a little breathless. She waved at him over the police tape, her red raincoat vivid against all of the dreary grey drizzle. 

He smiled tightly, lifted his hand in answering greeting. He watched as she spoke to one of the nearest officers, who lifted the tape and let her through. 

She gave the crumpled taxi little more than a passing glance as she approached. Her face was pinched with concern. "Are you all right? What happened?"

He nodded towards the taxi, shrugged. "Bit of excitement." 

"That's the understatement of the day." 

"Sorry to bother you," he said. "But—" 

"It's no bother," she touched his forehead, tipped his head back to look at the bandage. A sly smile lifted the corner of her mouth. "Got me out of the office a bit early." 

He laughed, looked down at the ground. It was still early in the day. It only felt like years had passed. 

"Still," he said. "When you gave me your number, I hardly think you expected to hear from me this soon." 

She shrugged, still smiling, her eyes twinkling. "Expected? No. Hoped? Well—" 

He stood up, noticed Sergeant Donovan watching him from the other side of the street. Thought of her strange line of questioning, the suspicious twist of her mouth. 

He felt paranoid, exposed. The phone was heavy and conspicuous in his pocket, the gun warm where it pressed against the skin of his back. 

"So," Mary said. "Where do you live?" 

"Hm?" He looked at her, startled. 

"So I can take you home," she said. She laughed a little. "That is why you called me, yeah?" 

"Oh, right," he said. He thought of his drab, claustrophobic bedsit. 

Surely his address was no great secret. If Jim-not-actually-from-IT had been willing to pose as a cabbie to ambush him, there was nothing keeping him from making another attempt at John's flat. 

"Actually," John said. He smiled, hoped it was one of his charming ones. "You'd said something earlier about coffee?" 

She raised her brows. 

"I _do_ owe you," he said. There was a little frisson of guilt running up his spine. He ignored it. "And it seems the least I can do, really, after heartlessly demanding you leave work to help me out." 

"Truly heartless," she agreed. "But then again, I had heard doctors could occasionally be tyrants." 

"Allow me to make it up to you?" 

She smiled at him, mischief in her eyes. "I suppose," she said. 

*

He chose a booth at the back of a small café that gave him a good angle to keep an eye on the door. 

If Mary noticed his preoccupation, she did not mention it. 

They sat nursing their coffees. She'd also ordered a croissant, and she picked at it without really eating much of it. 

"Bit dry," she said, when she noticed him noticing. 

He excused himself and went into the bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror. His face was pallid, tired. There were dark circles under his eyes. A bruise was slowly blooming from beneath the bandage on his forehead. Flecks of dried blood—his own—on his shirt. 

He had no idea why Mary had agreed to be seen in public with him. 

He thought again of Jim, of the flat, dead look in his eyes. The way his face had twisted and contorted when John had thrown the laptop. 

_That was the stupidest thing you could have possibly done._

No, he quite thought that involving a coworker in all of this mess was the stupidest thing he could have possibly done. 

He should have just given her a fake address, had her drop him off there.

He never should have—

Christ, what a mess.

He turned on the tap, bent over the sink, splashed his face with cool water. 

His reflection did not look any better when he met his own eyes in the mirror a second time. 

He sighed, went back out into the café. Mary was still at the little booth where he'd left her, sipping delicately at her coffee. She smiled widely when she saw him approaching. 

He sat down, made a bit of a show of grimacing and shifting in his seat. It was strange, he thought. There would have been a time, not too long ago, when all of the fussing and pained expressions would have been real. 

"Sorry," he said to her. "If I seem—distracted. Or—" 

"You've had a rough day," she said. She put her coffee down, studied him. "Where _did_ you rush off to this morning, anyway?" 

"I had a—um. Family emergency." 

"Everything all right?" 

"Yeah," he said. "Yes. Er—my sister. She's um—bit of an alcoholic. So. Sometimes she calls, and— well." 

There it was, that twinge of guilt again. He had not spoken to Harry in years. 

"Mysterious family emergency and then nearly dashed to bits by a rogue taxi driver," Mary said. Her eyes were sparkling. She leaned across the booth, her voice dropping, conspiratorial. "Are you _sure_ you're not some kind of secret agent?" 

He swallowed, the smile curdling on his face. 

"Pretty sure, yeah," he said. 

"If you say so," Mary winked. She leaned back in her seat. "So that taxi driver. The police said something about your laptop?" 

John frowned, cleared his throat. "Er—yeah. He tried to steal it. It ended up in the street. Crushed by a lorry." 

Mary winced. "Oh, that's unfortunate." 

"Yeah," John said. He thought of Lazarus— _Sherlock_ , who he no longer had any chance at reaching. Sherlock, who was going to die alone and in pain and waiting for help that would never come. "Unfortunate." 

He wondered if he could get a new computer. He'd need to have the messaging program reinstalled. There had been a licensing issue, he recalled. Back when he'd started at the surgery. Something about privacy concerns. But maybe he could—maybe they could put a rush on it. The IT department. The _real_ IT department. It was a small chance, but perhaps he could reestablish contact. If Sarah—

"Pretty sure Sarah's going to sack you," Mary said. Then she winced, covered her mouth with her hand. "Sorry." 

John deflated against the back of the booth. "Yeah," he said, and he was surprised at how tired he felt. "I'm not actually surprised." 

"I'm glad you called," Mary said. "Really. I'd wanted a chance to get to know you." 

_Why?_ John wondered, but did not say. 

She blushed a bit, looked down at the table. 

He thought this might be the part where he was expected to say something charming in return. He found himself tongue tied. 

He wanted to be the sort of man who could flirt, who could exchange witty banter with a lovely woman. He'd been that man once. Mary seemed to bring it out in him. With a little effort, he thought, he could be that man again. 

Except—

Who was he kidding? He'd spent a few days feeling important, mixed up in something that was bigger than the narrow little box his life had shrunk down to. He'd been _doing_ something. Someone depended on him. 

And he'd failed. He'd failed utterly, completely, irrevocably.

Everyone already thought Sherlock Holmes was dead. Soon enough, he would be for real. And John had done nothing to stop it. How could he smile and flirt and carry on as if nothing had happened? 

The silence had stretched too long and too thick. Mary cleared her throat, uncomfortable now, her flirtatious demeanor gone. 

"Excuse me," she said. She smiled, a quick, bloodless twist of the lips, and slipped out of the booth to walk towards the bathrooms. 

John groaned, shut his eyes. 

_Find the phone and you'll find me._

He took the phone out of his pocket, looked at it. The lock screen was the same. 

**I AM LOCKED**

_Be clever._

He straightened up his seat, stared at the screen. Four boxes. Four numbers, or four letters. A password that Lazarus seemed to think he'd be able to guess. 

A password that meant something to Sherlock Holmes.

He pursed his lips. Then carefully typed _221B_ into the phone. 

A beep. **WRONG PASSCODE**

"Shit," he said. He sagged back in his chair. 

"Is that your phone?" Mary asked from behind him. She slid back into her seat, leaned across the table to peer at it. "Ooh, expensive. You know, I'm starting to revisit this whole secret agent suspicion of mine." 

"Not mine," John said, slipping it back into his pocket. His heart thudded in his chest. "Just—belongs to a friend. Someone changed the password. He's locked out." 

"Pity," Mary said. She smiled at him. She'd reapplied her lipstick. "Could be a case for Sherlock Holmes." 

John coughed. "What?" 

Mary frowned. "Sherlock Holmes. The detective? Sorry, bit of a bad joke. He died a few years back—it was in all the papers." 

"No, I—I know who he is. Was. Just—" 

"He was good at puzzles," Mary said. "Or, at least that's what everyone thought. The papers called him a fraud, but—I only meant—well. If anyone was going to guess the password on your friend's phone, it'd be someone like that." 

"Right," John said. He looked up at the ceiling. His mouth was dry. "Well. Doubt I'll be getting much help from a dead detective." 

"No, I suppose not," Mary said. 

Silence fell between them. He wondered why she was still there, why she hadn't decided he was horribly rude and unreceptive to her charms. 

She did not seem put off. 

_Be clever._

He pressed the palm of his hand against his pocket, against the hard case of the phone. Hesitated. Drew it out again. Looked at it. 

**I AM LOCKED**

_HOME,_ he typed.

**WRONG PASSCODE**

_1234,_ he entered, a little desperately.

**WRONG PASSCODE**

"You know, I've got something of a knack for codes," Mary said. She held out her hand, raised her brows.

"Now who's the secret agent?" he said. He offered a quick smile. He did not offer the phone. 

It was ridiculous. It was useless. He could sit here all night fiddling with the phone and not getting any closer to getting through. Sherlock Holmes had placed his trust in the wrong person, and he was going to pay for that error with his life. 

"Still locked?" Mary made a sympathetic noise. 

"Locked," he agreed. He lifted his head, looked at her. She was lovely, truly. And she was still bright-eyed and smiling at him like this was a date. 

It didn't make any sense. 

It didn't make any sense _at all._

There was something cold trickling down his spine. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable, edgy, his heart beating too fast. 

Paranoid, he thought. He was being paranoid. Just because some people were actually out to get him didn't mean that everyone was. 

Mary with her mischievous smile and her willingness to ditch work to help him and her secret agent talk and her _knack for codes_ was just—she was just—

"I have to go," he said, and stood up. 

For a moment, she was speechless. Then she stood up as well. "John?" 

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry. I am—I am sorry. I really appreciate you picking me up." 

She bit her lip, looked down at the ground for a moment before meeting his gaze. "Did I—have I upset you?" 

"No," he said. He was sweating, now. He needed to get outside. "I just—" he forced himself to hold himself still, to try for a small smile. "I think it's just hitting me—yeah? The accident. Nearly being robbed. I can't sit still. Need to walk it off." 

"I can go with—" 

"No," he said, too quickly, too quickly. He shook his head, held out his hand, placating. "I'm not—not fit for company right now. I'll talk to you tomorrow, yeah? I'll call you." 

She frowned at him. Nodded slowly. He thought of her saying _Could be a case for Sherlock Holmes._

"I appreciate all you've done," he said. "Truly. And I'll—yeah." 

He nodded, smiled one last time, turned and headed for the door. He did not look back. 

The cool grey drizzle was welcome against his flushed face.

*

John walked. 

He paid little attention to where he was going, simply moved with the ebb and flow of the city. He kept his hand cupped around the phone in his pocket, protective, sheltering. 

_Be clever._

Lazarus was clever. Even injured, weakened, diminished on the other end of a poor internet connection, that much was apparent. And Sherlock Holmes, that unfortunate and much maligned dead detective, had once been known for his cleverness. 

John did not feel clever. 

He felt hunted, exposed, three steps behind. He couldn't go home. He'd walked away from the only person who'd seemed willing to help him. 

The message on the lock screen taunted him. 

**I AM LOCKED**

_FLAT,_ he tried. _KEYS._

**WRONG PASSCODE**

"Arsehole," he said out loud, causing a passerby to shoot him a disapproving look. He ignored it. "What kind of hint was that? _Be clever._ Someone really clever wouldn't have bet their life on a guessing game." 

He paused to kick a bit of rubbish out of the way. 

"Sherlock-fucking-Holmes with his locked-fucking-phone," he said. He stared down at the screen as if he could will it to yield. Then he tipped his head back, looked up at the sky. He could not believe it had not gone dark yet. The day felt as if it had lasted a thousand years. 

"I'm Sherlock Holmes," he said, lilting his voice up, irritated now. "And I'm the stupidest genius in all of London. Oh, hey, save my life? Here, use this locked phone. Great. Sure. Thanks for nothing." 

_ARSE,_ he did not so much as type as stab, angry fingers against the keys. 

**WRONG PASSCODE**

"Sure," he said again. "Locked. Yeah. No problem." 

Then he stopped. 

"Oh," he said. 

He stared at the lock screen. Looked at the words, the placement. 

It was possible, he thought. All this time, he'd been looking at **I AM LOCKED** as a statement of fact that needed to be solved, rather than part of a phrase. But the way it appeared on the screen—

**I AM**

**_ _ _ _**

**LOCKED**

He started to giggle and clamped a hand over his mouth. He was quite sure he looked like a lunatic there in the steady afternoon drizzle, standing in the middle of the pavement shouting and laughing at himself. 

_Find the phone and you'll find me._

"You egotistical wanker," he muttered, and typed _SHER_ into the spaces. 

The lock screen vanished. He was in. 

"Unbelievable," he said. He looked at the menu. There was a little red notification at the bottom of the screen—a new text message. 

He opened it. 

_Call this number._

He laughed again, nearly giddy now. He pressed send. There was a moment of silence, and then it began to ring. 

He sank against the cool damp brick, shut his eyes. Held the phone to his ear. One ring. Two. Three. He was no longer laughing. 

There was a click, a muted whisper of indrawn breath. 

"John," Lazarus said.


	5. Help

*

"Hi," John said. The phone was warm against his ear. There was a strange urge to laugh bubbling up from somewhere deep in his chest. He tamped it back down. 

Lazarus was still alive. All was not lost. Not yet. 

"What took you so long?" 

John stood up straight, indignant, his coat scraping against the rough brick behind him. The urge to laugh had deserted him. 

"What _took_ me so long?"

"By my estimates, you should have been able to reach Baker Street and retrieve the phone in—" 

John barked out a laugh. "You could have told me the password, you dick." 

"I did!" 

"You absolutely did not." 

"I said to find me. Me, meaning my name. Meaning—" 

"Yeah," John said. "I got it. Lucky for you." 

An indignant sputter on the other end. Lazarus took a breath, clearly preparing some sort of rebuttal. 

"Look," John said. He stepped away from the wall he'd been leaning against, hunched his shoulders against the persistent rain. "This has been an—ah—eventful day. I have the phone, and I want to help. What do you need me to do?" 

"Eventful? Eventful how?" 

John glanced around. There were fewer people on the pavement than normal thanks to the rain, but he was unable to avoid turning a suspicious eye on those that remained. 

"I've caught someone's attention," John said. "Or several someones." 

Silence. Breathing. He thought that those breaths sounded rather laboured, and it was a sobering reminder that the man on the other end of the line was in trouble, real trouble, regardless of how much he tried to hide it. 

"Lazarus?" John said, after a moment. And then, tentatively: "Sherlock?" 

"I should have anticipated he'd move on you directly," he said. His voice was flat, nearly monotone. "I'd thought—I didn't—" 

"Who?" John asked. He did not doubt they were talking about the same person. He thought of Jim's dead eyes, that frightful sneer, and grimaced. "Who is he, really?" 

Lazarus ignored the question. "Were you hurt?"

"No," John said. "Bit of attempted kidnapping. I threw my laptop under a lorry." 

"Ah." 

"So I couldn't exactly pop in for a chat," John said. "Or ask you about that password." 

"I see." 

He had the impression that Lazarus's mind was very far from their current conversation. 

"Are you all right?" John asked.

"What? Yes," Lazarus said, dismissive. Then he cleared his throat, seemed to catch back up to what John had said. "Well. No. But you're working on that." 

"What do you need me to do?" 

"The phone you're using is secure," he said. "It's a—well. Something of a souvenir from a past case." 

"Right," John said. He frowned, waited. 

"The fact that my br—that my handler at MI6 has not attempted to reach out to you is concerning." 

"You think he might be compromised?" 

"I don't know," Lazarus said. "I don't like not knowing." 

"You said there were others. Associates of yours. People you could depend on." The rain had begun to lighten up, barely more than a fine mist against John's face. "Tell me how to find them." 

A long, worrying silence.

John stopped walking. "Lazarus?" 

"Sherlock." 

"What?"

"You said—earlier. You called me Sherlock." 

"Yeah," John scratched at the back of his neck, suddenly uncomfortable. "Is that—that _is_ your name, right?" 

"Yes," he said. His voice had gone soft, almost contemplative. "It's been—a long time since I've heard it." 

"Oh," John said. He cleared his throat, started walking again. "Is it all right if—"

"Yes." 

"Okay," John said. And then, after another long silence, "Sherlock?" 

"Lestrade," Sherlock said, hasty, as if he'd been startled. "He's a detective inspector with Scotland Yard. He knows me. Start there." 

John thought of the news articles he'd pulled up while in the flat on Baker Street, the research he'd done on Sherlock Holmes. His heart sank. 

"What? What is it?" 

"Erm," John said. "After you—after—" 

"After I what?" 

"It was a bit of a—a bit of a _thing._ After you fell. Jumped. Whatever. The papers called it a scandal. NSY cleaned house. Sacked a lot of people." 

"What people?" There was genuine alarm in Sherlock's voice.

"People who'd worked with you. Who'd shared information. That sort of thing." 

"That's—" Sherlock took a breath, seemed to cast around for the right word. "Unfortunate." 

"I don't know for sure if this bloke Lestrade was one of them," John said. "But, um. Just so you know." 

"He would have been," Sherlock said. "Almost certainly." 

"I can try," John said.

"Waste of time," Sherlock said. "We need to work quickly. Are you familiar with Barts Hospital?" 

John barked out a laugh. "You could say that." 

"Good. There's a pathologist there, Molly Hooper." 

John pinched the bridge of his nose, considered. Sherlock Holmes had thrown himself from the top of Barts Hospital, according to the papers. It had been a very messy, very public death. And yet he'd survived. Somehow.

John thought he might be starting to get a clearer picture of how such a thing was possible. 

"Is she the one who helped you? When—" 

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Her involvement was kept strictly confidential—it was never shared with my unit. They're watching _you_ now, but she should be in the clear. You'll need to speak with her, and you'll need to be discreet." 

"All right, yeah, I can do that," John said. "But—Sherlock? What is she going to be able to do?" 

"We've established a failsafe. A channel of communication directly to my—" he hesitated, ploughed on. "My handler. He's the only one who knows about her role in all of this. We'd agreed it was best not to advertise her involvement. Just in case." 

"And if your handler really is compromised?" 

"I believe it's more likely that someone is deliberately withholding information. He can only act on what he knows, and if there are one or more people on the inside working against him—" 

"Right," John said. "Got it." 

"Barts," Sherlock said. "Molly Hooper. And John—?"

There was something hoarse and vulnerable in Sherlock's voice that made John hold the phone just a little bit tighter. "Yeah?" 

"Hurry." 

*

John had trained at Barts, years ago, and though it held a fond place in his memories he had not had much cause to go back. 

The first thing that struck him, as he walked down a bustling corridor, was how much the place had changed. 

Still, the basic layout remained the same. There was a small staff room off of the main lobby and he ducked in, grabbed a white lab coat off of a hook behind the door and paused to glance in the mirror. He scrubbed his hands through his rain-damp hair, flattened the top down in an effort to hide the bruise blooming on his forehead. 

The lab coat hid the drops of dried blood on his shirt. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do. 

He squared his shoulders and walked with purpose, gave no one any reason to question why he was there. 

With every hasty step he took, every indrawn breath, every thud of his own heart against his ribs he heard Sherlock's pained voice saying _hurry, hurry, hurry._

He brushed past a slow-moving crowd of women in dresses, nearly collided with a lost-looking man in a suit as he headed towards the lifts. 

The morgue was in the basement. The lights were dimmer down there, the halls quiet and empty. His own rushed footsteps were overloud, heralding his frantic arrival. 

There was no one in the first autopsy bay, nor the second. He looked at the gleaming stainless steel tables, at the drawers on the far wall. Looked away. 

There was a door at the end of the hallway and he stopped in front of it, looked at the chipped nameplate that read **M HOOPER**. 

He stretched out his hand, rapped his knuckles against the door. 

There was no answer. No rustle of motion within. He tried the knob and, finding it unlocked, pushed his way into the little office.

He did not flick on the lights. The dim glow from the hallway was enough to see by. 

The air was cool, with a faint floral scent. 

There was a small desk against the wall. A colourful striped jumper was draped over the back of the chair, and a pile of folders sat in a neat stack on the floor next to the desk. A mug with a bright abstract print, cleaned and set upside down on the desk. A vase of flowers sat next to it, fresh, not drooping or wilting—clearly the source of the pleasant smell. 

A laptop, closed and shut off. 

He went over to the desk, pressed his hand against the top of the laptop. Warm to the touch.

He must have just missed her. 

"Shit," he said. 

There was a birthday card propped up against the vase. He picked it up, looked at it. Multiple people had wished Molly well. 

John turned in a slow circle, looked around the room. There was a small corkboard behind the door, a few sheets of paper pinned up. He fanned through them. Autopsy results. 

At the bottom right corner of the board was a pinned photograph, tucked behind one of the sheets of paper. A candid shot, a woman with long brown hair and a shy smile. She was cradling a cat in her arms. He noted the jumper she was wearing in the photograph, the same colourful stripes as the one draped over the back of the desk chair. 

"Hello, Molly," he said. He touched the photo, let his hand drop. 

He thought of Sherlock Holmes, that famous dead detective. Soon to be dead for real if John couldn't do something to intervene. What would Sherlock make of this quiet tableau? 

The birthday card, he thought. The flowers.

The flowers were new. The floral smell was faint, pleasant, not overly perfumed or cloying. A wilting bouquet could quickly become overwhelming in a small room. She'd received them recently. Probably today. 

Conclusion: Today was her birthday. 

"Great, yeah," he said. "Happy birthday. That still doesn't get me anywhere." 

He left everything as he'd found it, shut the door quietly behind him. The corridor was silent, empty. 

He sagged against the wall, closed his eyes. "Shit," he said again. 

Down the hall, a door creaked open. Footsteps in the hall, the squeak of gurney wheels. 

John straightened up, squared his shoulders. The white coat fluttered against the back of his legs. 

A man in scrubs turned the corner, pushing a corpse draped in a white sheet. He stopped when he saw John. 

"Help you with something, doc?" 

"No, thanks," John said. "Just looking for Dr Hooper, but I must have missed her." 

"Yeah, she headed up to the concert about twenty minutes ago. Is this about the results? Dr Bell should be here—" 

"No," John said. He offered a smile, his charming one. "No rush. Thank you for your help." 

He went down the hallway with his head up, his strides confident, direct. Then he stopped, looked back. The orderly was still watching him. 

"Concert?" John asked. 

*

John had not set foot in the Barts Pathology Museum since he'd been a medical student. He recalled that some of his peers had been fascinated with the place, with its high ceilings and collection of medical curiosities. At the time, he'd been too buried in his studies to pay it much mind, but now—

Now he allowed himself a moment to appreciate it—the narrow spiral staircases that climbed upwards, the pathways that led visitors past a rich and eclectic collection of the strange, the interesting and the macabre. 

It reminded him, oddly, of the Baker Street flat.

He scanned the growing crowd, skimming over several women in dresses and heels, looking for Molly Hooper. 

There were musicians setting up against the far wall, serious-faced as they tuned their instruments. There was a young man holding a violin and it made him think of the music stand he'd seen by the window at Baker Street. He thought of the sheet music piled high on the desk, all written in a careful hand.

He'd never known anyone who composed music. 

He hoped Sherlock would survive to play again. 

"Ticket?" 

John startled, tore his gaze away from the musicians and the mingling crowd, found himself face-to-face with an impatient-looking woman in a blue dress. 

"Pardon?" 

"Do you have your ticket?" 

"Oh." He offered up his best smile, straightened his lab coat. "Not yet." 

"Well, I'm sorry, but tonight's performance is sold out." 

Over her shoulder, a woman in a black dress caught his attention as she moved through the crowd. She slowed to speak to someone near the far wall, offered a polite smile. She'd done something elaborate with her hair, and she was wearing more makeup than in the candid photo he'd seen on the bulletin board, but her face was unmistakable.

Molly Hooper. 

"It's—" John said. He cleared his throat, refocused. He smoothed his hand over the lapels of his coat, hoped he didn't look too deranged. "It's very important that I attend. Surely there's an extra ticket you can find, or—" 

"The Music in the Museum performances sell out _weeks_ in advance. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but—" 

"There's someone I need to speak with—" 

"Well, perhaps you can try their mobile." The woman lifted her brows at him, clearly expecting him to move along.

Over her shoulder, Molly smiled and nodded, ended her brief conversation. She turned away, stepping carefully in her heels, and disappeared into the rippling crowd. 

Desperation flared— a wild, hot panic. 

_Her birthday,_ he thought. That useless observation he'd made down in the morgue. 

Useless. Utterly useless information. 

Unless—

Years ago, while he'd been home on leave, he and some mates had stumbled across a raucous hen party in a little pub. They'd thrown back a few drinks together, and he'd been well on his way to drunk when one of the women had whispered in his ear that the male entertainment they'd hired for the night had backed out at the last minute. 

_We've had this planned for ages. So disappointing,_ she'd said. 

And he'd looked at his mates, and they'd looked back at him, and he'd grinned and said: _I think we might be able to help you out._

And help, they had. 

It had been a good night. 

He wasn't the same person he'd been, all those years ago. He doubted he'd ever be that person again. But maybe—maybe he could muster up some of that old spirit. For Sherlock. 

"There seems to be some mistake," he said. He smiled, the most charming one in his arsenal, leaned in. Dropped his voice low. "Dr Hooper. Molly Hooper. Do you know who she is?" 

"Of course, but—" 

"It's her birthday," John said. He cleared his throat, looked down, hoped he appeared at least reasonably embarrassed. "And I was—well. Some of her friends arranged for a little gift." 

The woman stared at him for a moment. "What gift?" 

He smiled again. Hoped like hell that the brief impression he'd got of Molly from her photograph and a glimpse in the crowd was correct. "Me," he said. 

"You." 

"Well—a visit from Dr Love, to be specific." He tugged on the lapels of his lab coat, gave a little wiggle of his hips, raised his brows.

The woman looked utterly flabbergasted. 

"Only—" he said, and he pressed his lips together, gave a rueful smile. "I'm a little late. Trouble with on the tube. And now, because of that, poor Molly's birthday is ruined." 

"I—" 

He gave another shimmy of his hips, turned in a circle. He was attracting attention now—a small crowd of arriving guests had gathered behind him. He heard some giggles. 

"The event—" the woman said. 

"Doesn't start for another twenty minutes," John said. Someone behind him whistled. He grinned. 

"Oh come on, let him in," a woman's voice, somewhere behind him. 

He spun around, took two sashaying steps towards the woman who had spoken. Some more laughter now, a few encouraging cheers. He flashed his most charming smile, spun back around towards the desk. 

"Don't let my bad timing be the thing that ruins Dr Hooper's birthday," he said. "Please." 

The woman at the desk shut her eyes. There was a smile playing at the corner of her mouth, which he took to be a good sign. "Go," she said. 

He blew her a kiss, swung around the side of the table, still in-character, still seductive and a bit ridiculous and moving in a way that he hoped was at once conspicuous and utterly nonthreatening. 

"Oh, and Dr—um—Love?" 

He turned back. 

"Ten minutes," she said. "Anything past that, you'll need to take it outside." 

He winked at her, then slipped into the crowd. 

"Over there!" someone shouted, pointing towards his left. 

Molly was standing near a small folding table on which someone had set up little plastic cups and an assortment of cubed cheeses. He made his way towards her, grinning and ducking his head with every catcall and whistle. 

Colour rose in her cheeks as she watched him approach. She took a hasty sip of the drink in her hand, then coughed. 

"Um," she said. 

"Molly Hooper," John said, conscious of the eyes on him, the musicians still quietly and obliviously setting up in the corner, the woman at the desk who had stood from her chair to watch him proceed into the room. He had begun to sweat, his earlier bravado deserting him. 

Did he really think he could pull this off? Here?

"Yes," Molly said. "Um." 

"I'm Dr Love," he said, putting extra emphasis on the word _love._ He grinned, let his hands play across his shirt, toying with the buttons but not actually undoing them. There was a spot of dried blood stiffening the fabric next to one button, and he tried not to wince as his hand slid over it. "And I'm your birthday present." 

"Oh," she said, and she giggled a little bit, took another swallow of her drink. Her face had gone quite red. She glanced around, a little wildly. "Who—? Um. Who—?" 

"Your friend Sarah—" he said, lying smoothly, giving another little shake of his hips, popping the top button of his shirt loose,"—wanted to be very, _very_ sure you had a great birthday this year." 

Molly stared at him for a moment, then looked around again. All eyes were on them. 

John popped open a second button.

She giggled again. Set the drink down on the table. 

Someone in the crowd let out a whoop. 

"This is—wow—" Molly said. Her face was red, but she was smiling. Embarrassed. Flustered. "This is—um. Can we—not do this here? The performance is—it's starting, and—" 

"If the lady wants a private dance, the lady gets a private dance," John said. He was getting tired of smiling. He reached out, took Molly's hand, kissed it. 

Her hand was warm, skin flushed, grip tentative. 

"Er—this way," she said. She tugged his hand. He followed. 

They went out through the door together, Molly ducking her head and laughing at the catcalls. 

She walked very fast, even in her high heels. 

They went down a quiet corridor and through a set of doors, and then she was rounding on him, all nervousness gone, her face still quite red but all traces of flustered good humour wiped away. She wrenched her hand out of his grip, took two hasty steps back. 

"Who are you?" she demanded. 

"I—" 

"I don't have a friend called Sarah," she snapped. "And yes, it _is_ my birthday, but no friend of mine would ever arrange something like this _at work._ They know better. So this is some sort of joke, or—" 

"I'm sorry," John said. He held up his hands, placating. "I needed to speak with you—" 

"Then speak," she said, angry now, no—not angry— _furious_. "Or I'm calling security." 

"My name is John Watson," he said. "Sherlock Holmes asked me to find you." 

It was as if all of the air had gone out of her. Her face went white, her shoulders slumped, her eyes slipped shut. 

"Sherlock Holmes is dead," she said, but the fury had gone out of her voice, her words thin and disingenuous. 

"You know he's not," John said quietly.

She pressed her lips together, so tightly they went white. She nodded, once. 

"He needs your help," John said. "You might be the only person who can help him now." 

She was quiet for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was steel. "What do you need?" 

*

John did not go home. 

He walked for what felt like hours, the night air cold and wet against his cheeks. He kept one hand cupped protectively over his pocket, reassured by the weight of the phone that rested there. 

When he finally stopped moving and looked up, he was not particularly surprised to find himself standing in front of 221 Baker Street. 

He was too tired to laugh. 

He went up the steps, picked the lock and let himself in, leaned his back against the door and breathed in the stale, musty hallway air. 

He hung up his wet coat on the hook, went up the stairs. The flat was quiet and still, just as he'd left it. 

He did not turn on any lights. 

He plugged in the phone to charge, sat down on the aging leather sofa, looked down at his own hands. Hands that had once served a purpose. Hands that had healed people, hurt people, offered comfort and strength. 

Hands that now shook at inopportune times, betrayed him with sudden weakness, instilled within him a deep mistrust of his own abilities. 

He held Sherlock's life in those hands. 

He could not fail. He _would_ not fail. 

John picked up the phone and looked at it. There were photographs, old text messages. He scrolled through them, bemused. 

Photos of Sherlock, mostly. Shot from far enough away that he doubted the man had been aware they were being taken at all. He was draped in a white bedsheet and seemingly nothing else, standing tall and bored and unamused on the pavement outside, pedestrians streaming all around. 

There were texts, all outgoing, nothing incoming. Dinner requests, mostly. Flirty comments. 

John wondered, not for the first time, what kind of life Sherlock had left behind. What kind of life he'd be returning to. Who he'd be returning to. If he returned. _When_ he returned. 

He backed out of the text messages, dialed. 

"John," Sherlock said. His voice sounded faint, tired. John did not want to think about what that might mean. 

"It's done," he said. "I talked to Molly. She's going to help. You'll be—it's going to be all right." 

"Oh," Sherlock said. He sounded faintly surprised. "Good. That's good." 

"Are you all right?"

Sherlock coughed. It was a wet, painful sound. 

"You're not all right," John said. "Of course you're not. Stupid to ask, really." 

"Mm," Sherlock agreed. "Well. It's only polite." 

John gave a tired little laugh, leaned his head back against the sofa cushions. It was comfortable. 

"I'm in your flat," he said. 

Sherlock was silent. His breathing was unsteady, pained. 

"Oh," he said, after a moment. 

"Thought there was a fairly good chance I'd end up kidnapped again if I went back to mine." 

"Not a bad deduction," Sherlock said. "You're probably right. There's a key under the skull on the mantel." 

"What?"

"So you don't have to pick the lock again." 

"Oh. Er—thanks." 

"John?" 

"Yeah?" 

"I wanted to say—" he coughed again, another wet wracking spasm. "I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you. For all that you've done." 

John sat up in alarm, his pulse pounding. "What? Why? Why are you thanking me now?" 

"There aren't many who would have expended the effort, and—" 

"Sherlock," John said. "Whatever you think—just—just hold on, all right? Help is on the way. By this time tomorrow you're going to be in hospital, feeling incredibly embarrassed over all of this—all of this politeness. So stop it. Just stop it." 

"I can be polite." 

John laughed, a miserable sound. "I hardly know you, but somehow I really doubt that." 

Sherlock chuckled. His breathing was laboured. "You did well, John. Anything that happens now—it's not your fault." 

"Shit," John said. He pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes. "Tell me where you are and _I'll_ come get you." 

Another quiet chuckle, another pained breath. 

"Just—stay on the line, all right? Keep talking. Or I'll talk. It doesn't matter. Just stay awake. Don't give up now, not with help finally on the way. That would be stupid. And you're not stupid, Sherlock, I know that much." 

"Natural leader," Sherlock said, quiet, so quiet that John had to strain to hear him. "No wonder you excelled in the army. Of course you're miserable now." 

"See? Not stupid," John said. He clenched his hand against his leg. "I _am_ miserable, I've been bloody miserable since I got back. But these last few days—I'm not miserable anymore, Sherlock, and I've got you to thank for that. So try not to die, yeah?" 

"Endeavoring not to." 

"Good," John said. He shut his eyes, breathed out through his nose. "Christ. Um. Do you—is there anyone? Anyone you're anxious to get back to?" 

"What?" 

"You know. Girlfriend. Boyfriend. Someone to—someone to come home to?"

Silence. Breathing. 

"Someone special," John added. He thought about the wardrobe of bespoke suits he'd found, the porcelain skin and arrogant face of the man in the newspaper photographs. "Or. Or are you more the different-girl-in-every-city type?" 

"What?" 

"The person you were texting, maybe?" John tried, feeling stupid, lost and out of his depth. _Shut up,_ he told himself furiously, _shut up, shut up, shut up._

"Texting?" 

"The—you know. The person you were asking to dinner. Er, sorry. I looked through your phone." 

Silence. 

"You know what, never mind," John said. His cheeks had gone warm. He looked up at the ceiling. "None of my business." 

"Why do you want to know?" 

"Just, um. Just making conversation." 

"Why?" Sherlock sounded genuinely curious. 

_Because you're interesting,_ John wanted to say. He bit the words back, gripped the phone a little tighter. _Because I want to know everything about you. Because I want you to stay alive._

"I didn't have anyone waiting for me," John said. "When I was deployed. But some of my mates did. And it—they said it helped. When things got bad. To think about their girl back home."

"Oh," Sherlock said. 

"Sometimes it helps. That's all. To know that someone's there." 

Sherlock was silent for a long moment. "You're there," he said, finally. 

"Yeah," John said, and he huffed out a little laugh. "I am." 

_Not what I meant,_ he thought. And then: _Shit, maybe it was._

Sherlock gave a heavy sigh, and John supposed it might have sounded long-suffering and haughty were it not weakened by pain. 

"Go on, then," Sherlock said. "You seem determined to inflict conversation on me. So." 

A smile tugged at the corner of John's mouth. "All right. If you think it will help." 

"You seem convinced. I'll defer to your medical opinion." 

"What should I—?"

"Doesn't matter. Boring. Pick something." 

"All right." 

He talked. 

He talked until his eyes grew heavy, and his words slowed and slurred. He talked until he could not talk any more, soothed and encouraged by the reassuring rasp of Sherlock's breaths on the other end of the line. 

*

John opened his eyes to weak morning light filtered through the window glass, and could not recall when he'd fallen asleep. 

He'd slumped over on the sofa. His neck was stiff and he stretched, trying to work it loose. 

The phone was still in his hand. 

He stared at it for a moment, heart kicking in his chest. 

"Sherlock?" he tried, his voice slurred, his mouth gummy and useless. 

There was no response.


	6. Machinations

*

"Sherlock," John said, alarmed now. He stood up, spine creaking. "Sherlock, you still there?"

Silence.

He dialed again. Listened as it rang once, twice, a third time. Kept ringing. No one answered. 

"Shit," he said. 

He stared at the useless phone. His skin had gone uncomfortably warm, his pulse pounding. 

_No,_ he thought. _No. No. No. Not now. Not when help is so close._

The phone buzzed in his hand and he jolted, stabbing at the keypad with his index finger to accept the call. 

"Sherlock? You all right?" 

There was a pause, and then an unfamiliar and amused little chuckle. He lifted the phone away from his ear, frowned at it. 

"Well now," a woman's voice said. "Isn't this sweet?" 

"Who is this?" 

"I believe I should be asking the same." 

"How did you get this number?" 

She laughed again, an airy sound that grated on John's nerves. "That wasn't much of a challenge, considering it's my phone." 

He blinked. "Sorry, what?" 

"The phone you're holding in your hand belongs to me," she said. "Useless now, of course, although it _does_ have a certain sentimental value. Assuming you go in for that sort of thing. Has he really held onto it all this time?" 

The photographs, John thought. The ones of Sherlock out in front of the flat, on the pavement in nothing but a white bedsheet. He'd wondered who had taken them. And the texts he'd scrolled through, all those texts—

"Your phone," he said. An unpleasant flush of heat crawled up the back of his neck. 

"Yes, and I'd like it back." 

He frowned. "I thought you said it was useless." 

"Oh you're not bad," she said, and she laughed again. "Fine, keep the phone. For the last two years I'd assumed it was as dead as the man who last had it in his possession. Clearly I was mistaken on both counts." 

He sat back down on the sofa, pinched his brow. "Who are you?" 

"Oh, I don't give up my secrets that easily," she said. 

"You're MI6 too, then?" That made sense, in a way, he supposed. 

"MI6?" Her voice was incredulous. "Certainly not. Although I am very well-connected. A lady has to look after her own interests, wouldn't you agree?" 

"Right," he said. "Hanging up now." 

"MI6 _too._ That's what you said. Your exact words. The word _too_ has a certain implication, wouldn't you say? That's interesting," she said. 

He pressed his lips together, irritated. Did not disconnect the call. "It really isn't." 

"Is _that_ what he's been up to all this time? My, how the mighty have fallen." She hummed lightly, a thoughtful little sound. "It doesn't suit him at all, that sort of work." 

John cleared his throat, thrown, feeling a bit like he'd been run over and left for dead in the street. "Look—" 

"Oh, don't worry. I'm in the habit of collecting secrets, not divulging them. It was a bit of a shock, you know, hearing he'd gone out like that," she said. Her voice softened into something contemplative. "It's my experience that men like Sherlock Holmes don't tend to live very long—far too reckless, if you know what I mean. But something never quite felt right about the way he did it. I _had_ hoped it would all turn out to be some sort of scheme, though two years is a long time to play dead, wouldn't you say?" 

"I don't know," John said. "Are there standards for that sort of thing?" 

She laughed again, and this time it was almost genuine, as if he'd startled it out of her. "Oh, I can see why he likes you. He does so enjoy a bit of a verbal spar." 

He bristled. Thought again of all those texts. "So what are you—his girlfriend?" 

She choked out another laugh. "Is that what he's told you?"

"He hasn't mentioned you, actually." 

"Hm," she said, and there was mischief dancing in her voice. "Careful, you might hurt my feelings." 

He bounced his left knee under his hand, discomfited, seeking to dispel the nervous energy. She'd put him on edge. Not what he'd needed on the heels of Sherlock's worrisome silence. 

He spread the palm of his hand out flat, pressed it against his leg, stilled the restless jump. Hesitated. Thought about Sherlock's fading voice, the words he'd said: _You're there._

_I am,_ John had replied. 

He cleared his throat. "You—earlier, you said you were well-connected." 

"I'd certainly have to be, to survive being dead all these years." 

"To survi—" he stopped, shook his head. "You know what? I don't want to know. What do you mean by well-connected? If Sherlock were—if he were in trouble. Would you be able to help?" 

"Well, that depends. What kind of trouble?"

"The kind that might kill him. For real, this time." 

"Sorry," she said. She did not sound particularly sorry at all. "I'm already as dead as I'd like to be for the time being." 

He stood up, anger flaring. 

"So that's it," he said. "You'll text him. You'll text him a _lot,_ but you won't help him when he needs it." 

"Jealous?" 

"Pissed off," he said.

She laughed again, but it was a strangled dismissive sound. "Well. It's been nice chatting. Tell Sherlock to look me up if he ever makes it back to town. We'll have dinner. Two _remarkably_ well-preserved corpses." 

The line went dead. 

John took the phone away from his ear, stared at it. His face was hot. His fist was clenched at his side. 

He breathed out hard, went to the window, looked outside. The sky was grey. He dialed Sherlock's number again while watching the people walking on the pavement below. Listened as the phone rang and rang and rang, his heart sinking with every second that passed. 

_Maybe Molly had got in touch with the right people,_ he thought, a little desperately. _Maybe Sherlock was, right now, surrounded by rescuers and receiving much-needed medical attention. Maybe he was already en route back home to London._

He wanted very badly to believe that. 

Outside, a car horn blared. 

He could not hide out at Baker Street forever, he knew. At some point, he'd have to go home. He'd have to take his chances and hope that Jim-not-actually-from-IT had better things to do than lie in wait for him. 

He spared a mildly guilty thought for his job, looked at his watch. He was already hours late. Well, if Sarah was looking to sack him, she had more than ample reason to do so by now. 

Rain began to patter against the windows. 

It was cosy, in Sherlock's odd little flat. He liked the way the rain made shadows play against the patterned wallpaper. It was the sort of place he'd like to come home to. And the sort of place Sherlock deserved to come home to. 

John leaned his head against the cool window glass, shut his eyes. 

Christ, he hoped he hadn't been too late. 

*

He used Sherlock's shower, grimaced as he redressed in his own soiled clothes. The bloodstains on his shirt had dried in stiff brown patches. 

He'd have to take his chances and go home. 

And he should _stay_ there, because Sherlock's fate was out of his hands. 

He'd need to start looking for another job. Or maybe he ought to give up on the idea of living in London entirely and look to settle down somewhere more realistic. What he'd been doing for the last three years of his life had clearly not been cutting it. 

He wondered what his therapist would say. And then he laughed out loud at the thought, a sharp miserable sound, because he'd said more to Sherlock over the phone in one night than he'd said to his therapist in three years. 

And now he no longer walked with a limp, but Sherlock was—

No. He wouldn't allow himself to think the worst. Not yet. 

John scrubbed his hands through his still-damp hair, took one last look around the room. He went to the mantel, lifted up the grinning skull. Underneath was a small silver key. He picked it up, slipped it into his pocket. Did not allow himself to think about it. 

He put on his coat, went down the stairs and out into the cold morning rain. Locked the door behind him. 

There was a dark car idling near the kerb, and he eyed it suspiciously for a moment before hunching his shoulders against the rain and setting off towards the tube station. 

He glanced over his shoulder as he walked, frowning as he saw the car slowly following in his wake. He stopped, straightened up. The car stopped as well. 

Right. Intimidation tactic. 

Well. He wasn't about to stand for that. He turned around, clenched his hand at his side. Walked quickly back towards the car. 

He reached out, intending to knock firmly on the tinted glass window, when the door swung open, startling him. 

"There's no need to cause a scene, Dr Watson." 

John stepped back, stooped slightly to peer in to the car. 

The man who had spoken stared calmly back at him. He was well-dressed, his suit clearly expensive. His eyes were sharp. 

"Who are you?" John asked. 

The man inclined his head, indicating that John should climb in beside him. John folded his arms across his chest, stood his ground. 

"I wish to speak with you regarding a highly confidential matter," the man said, his face pinched in irritation. "I assure you, no harm will come to you." 

_Kidnapped? Threatened? Thrown in the back of a mysterious dark car?_

Sherlock had asked him that, mere days ago. Back when he was still Lazarus. 

John felt a smile curling inappropriately at the corner of his mouth. He cleared his throat, shifted where he stood. 

"What's this about?" 

"You know what this is about." 

He supposed he did. With one last glance at the busy street, he climbed into the back of the car, sliding across a comfortable leather seat. Pulled the door shut behind him. 

"Right," he said. He looked expectantly at the man, who was watching him with an expression that verged on impatient. "Well. Either this is the part where you execute me, or the part where you tell me what the hell is going on." 

The man raised his brows, shifted in his seat. His hairline was receding. He begun to grey slightly at the temples. 

"I know which I'd prefer," John added. 

"What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?" 

John laughed, tipped his head back against the headrest. "Really. That's what you want to start with." 

"Allow me to rephrase that. You've known Sherlock Holmes for four days, and now you've moved into his flat." 

"I haven't _moved in,_ " John said, indignant. "I—I just needed a place to go. For the night." 

"The key in your right pocket indicates you intend to return." 

John glanced down at his pocket, flabbergasted. He felt his control over the situation, if he'd ever had any at all, slipping away. He swallowed, straightened his shoulders, met the man's gaze head on. 

"Who are you?" he asked again. 

The man studied him, did not respond. 

"I'll take a wild guess," John said. "MI6. This whole—kidnapping thing. Seems like your style." 

A small smile, a practiced little chuckle. "Kidnapping? Is that what you think this is?"

John pressed his lips together, raised his brows. 

"If you truly believed you'd just been _kidnapped_ by MI6, wouldn't you be a bit more frightened?" 

John shrugged, lifted his hands, let them drop back down to his sides. "After what I've been through the past few days, frankly, you just don't seem very frightening." 

"The bravery of the soldier." 

"Yeah," John said. "Look, I get it. You know all about me. Read it in a file, or—or whatever it is that you do these days. Can we skip to the part where you tell me what you want?" 

"Yes, fine," the man said, his tone slipping from brittle amusement to impatient. He leaned forward, his elbows folded on his knees, studied John closely. "I'm here because I received a rather alarming phone call from a woman by the name of Molly Hooper. I believe you are acquainted with Ms Hooper?" 

John studied him for a moment, then nodded. Looked away. "So I suppose this makes you the handler, then." 

"Pardon?" 

"Sherlock's handler. The man he's been trying and failing to get in touch with at every turn." 

The man's brows lifted, and this time John had the impression the expression was not calculated or cultivated, but represented a true flicker of surprise. 

"Mycroft Holmes," the man said, after a long moment. He offered his hand. His palm was cold. 

"Holmes," John said. "His—?" 

"Brother. Although _handler_ does have a nice ring to it." 

"Right," John said. He sat back against soft leather, turned to look out the window. There was rainwater beaded up on the glass. Storefronts and traffic slipped by. "Bit of a family business, then? Spying?" 

"These are special circumstances," Mycroft said. His voice was tight. 

John pulled his gaze away from the window, looked down at his hands. He swallowed. "Is he safe? Have you taken care of it?" 

"It's being handled." 

"You have a leak, you know. I tried to deliver his message days ago, and—" 

"The leak has been contained." 

"Sure about that?" 

"A trusted colleague," Mycroft said. There was regret in his voice. "Someone I'd considered a friend. Above reproach. And yet—well. It seems everyone can be had for the right price." 

"What—" 

"You seem to have the wrong idea," Mycroft cut him off, his face hardening. "I'm not here to _brief_ you. I'm here to tell you it's time for you to step away." 

John blinked, sat up straight. "Sorry, what?" 

"England appreciates your service. Now you need to stand down and let us take over." 

"Right," John said. "Because you've done such a fine job so far." 

Mycroft was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his lip curled up in an unamused smile. "Do you have any idea who James Moriarty is?" 

John shrugged. "Should I?" 

"You should," Mycroft said. "Considering he wants you dead." 

John thought of Jim from IT, of his flat dead eyes, his wildly inconsistent speech. The taxi, weaving and hurtling through afternoon traffic. He shut his eyes. 

"He usually gets what he's after," Mycroft added. "Though his interest in you extends only as far as your—association—with Sherlock." 

"Who is he, really?" 

"A dangerous man. And the reason my brother has a marble headstone and an obituary in the _Times_ instead of a thriving career."

John thought about those news clippings, the way Sherlock had been painted in the press. The detective who had defrauded Scotland Yard. 

"Sherlock is not a spy by trade," Mycroft said. His voice had softened, his tone regretful. "An opportunity presented itself and he agreed to help. I dare say the operation has dragged on far longer than any of us could have ever anticipated." 

"He's been tortured," John said. His voice broke as he thought about it, about the way Sherlock had said _interrogated,_ about the injuries he'd described. How infection had begun to set in, how his voice had begun to fade. How he'd gone silent, just that morning. 

"Yes," Mycroft said. He pressed his lips together. 

"Moriarty. He wanted my laptop," John said. "It's how I was—it's how Sherlock made contact. Initially." 

"Yes, and he approached you after you delivered your message to Lady Smallwood," Mycroft said. "We've pieced together his movements, although he remains at the moment—elusive." 

"She went to him with my message. Not to you." 

"Precisely," Mycroft spoke with a quick, grim flash of teeth. 

_He's supposed to be DEAD!_ Jim had shouted, blood and rainwater streaming down his face. 

"But. That doesn't make sense," John said. He shook his head, shifted forward in his seat. "No. Moriarty—the man who abducted me. He was surprised to hear that Sherlock was alive. Angry. If Lady Smallwood knew it all along, why only tell him now?" 

Mycroft did not respond. His expression gave nothing away. 

After a time, he spoke, his voice flat. "You are an invalided soldier several years removed from the battlefield. I appreciate your efforts, but this is not your fight." 

Heat flooded John's face. He clenched his fist, pressed it tightly against his thigh. Breathed out through his nose, looked away. 

The buildings he glimpsed through fogged window glass were familiar. The car slid to a stop along the kerb. 

"This is my flat." 

"You'll be wanting to pick up a few things, I presume, if you're to return to Baker Street." 

"You know where I live." 

"Of course," Mycroft said with a thin smile. "As you said, I have a file." 

John opened the door, slid out of the car. The rain had slowed to an uncomfortable light mist that made him hunch his shoulders. His face was still hot, his shoulders tense. 

He hesitated, turned, leaned back in. 

"You'll—" he paused, pressed his lips together. The words he'd intended as a demand emerged instead as a plea. "Will you let me know? If he's all right? If you—if he—" 

Mycroft stared at him. His gaze was piercing, unnerving. 

"You should return to Baker Street," he said, finally. "There is a security team in place there. It would be foolish for anyone to make further attempts on your life. James Moriarty is many things, but foolish is not one of them." He shifted in his seat, looked away from John, his expression pinched. "And it will be easier for me to reach you there. With updates." 

"Thank you," John said. He hesitated a moment longer before shutting the door and stepping back. 

He stood in the light rain and watched as the car pulled away from the kerb, his own reflection flickering by in the tinted windows. 

*

John did not go up his usual stairwell, instead choosing to use the one in the back of the building. He walked slowly, conscious of his own indrawn breaths, the rasp of his shoes against the worn metal stairs, the thud of his heart in his chest. 

Mycroft had dismissed him. _Invalided soldier._

That might be true, but he'd accomplished more in four days than all of bloody MI6 had done. 

He was alert in ways he had not been in years, attuned to his surroundings, his pulse high, his body ready. His gun was warm against his lower back. 

He almost _wanted_ Moriarty to be waiting for him. 

He reached his floor and crept down the hallway, treading lightly on the threadbare carpet. Nothing seemed unusual or out of place. 

He rounded a corner and approached his door. His hand went to his back, brushing against the gun, fingers curled and ready. 

The door was ajar. 

A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck, cold between his shoulder blades. He licked his lips, crouched, reached out and pushed the door open. 

His flat had been ransacked. 

Drawers had been opened and turned upside down, his meagre belongings spilled out on the ground. His desk had been kicked over, his mattress gutted. Someone had taken a knife to his pillow. There were feathers scattered over the floor, drifting aimlessly in the air, clinging to the walls. 

He breathed out hard through his teeth. 

There was a noise to his left, a little rattle and a stuttered breath. Someone was in his tiny bathroom. He turned, drew his gun, flicked off the safety. 

"Step out of there," he said. His voice was steady.

The bathroom door creaked open. Mary peered out at him, her eyes wide.


	7. The Woman

*

John tightened his grip on the gun, did not lower his arm. 

"Mary," he said. 

"John." She gripped the bathroom door tightly with her left hand. He could not see her right. "What are you—is that a _gun?_ "

"What are you doing here?" 

"I—" She blinked at him, her eyes wide, looking flustered. She did not let go of the door. "Can you lower that? I don't—I—" 

He breathed in hard through his nose, did not move. 

"I'll ask you again," he said. "What are you doing here?" 

"I was worried about you," she said. "You didn't show up at work. After yesterday—" 

"You've known me for one day. Now you're concerned because I didn't show up for work?" He frowned, kept his gun trained on her. "And you said I was sacked." 

"I said you were _probably_ sacked," she said. "You still had to show up for the—you know. Actual sacking." 

He smiled. It was a hard smile. "Funny, yeah. You're funny." 

"So I've been told," she said. She did not move away from the door. After a moment, something in her gaze faltered. "I—John—after you left last night, I was worried. You'd been injured and you'd asked for my help and then you just—you just went out into the rain. And I let you. I've been feeling terrible about it ever since. And when you didn't show up for work, I just—I feared the worst. I would never forgive myself if something had happened." 

"So you decided to toss my flat?" 

"I didn't do this," she said. "The door was open when I got here." 

"Right," he said. His arm had begun to ache. He kept his grip firm. "So you just decided to come in and have a look around. Because that's rational." 

"I was going to call the police," she said.

"What's in your hand?"

"What?" 

He nodded towards the door, where her left hand maintained a tight grip on the wood, her body twisted so her right hand was out of sight. _Gun,_ he thought, his pulse high, his battle-honed instincts screaming out a warning, _she has a gun._

"What are you talking about?" 

"What's in your hand? Your right hand?" 

She stared at him, just a few seconds too long. Her expression hardened. "My phone." 

"Show me." 

"John," she said. "Please drop the gun. You're frightening me." 

"Show me. Your hand." 

She did not move. Her gaze did not waver.

"John," she said. Her voice had softened, but her eyes were still sharp. "What have you got yourself mixed up in?" 

"I won't ask again," he said. 

He saw the moment she believed him, saw the way her expression shifted. Resignation, maybe. Regret. He thought about the way she'd smiled at him back at the surgery, that charming flirtatious demeanor. Her sparkling eyes, her good humour. Her interest. Wondered why it hadn't even occurred to him that it might be too good to be true. 

She came out from behind the door, moving slowly, her hands held up. There was a bag slung over her right shoulder. In her right hand was a phone. She shook the phone once, for emphasis, raised her brows.

"See?" she said. "I was calling the police." 

He breathed out through his nose, let his hand drop to his side. The gun was heavy and warm against his sweat-slicked skin. His palms had gone damp. His face burned hot. He averted his gaze. 

"Shit," he said. He sagged against the wall, put his hand over his eyes. His heart thundered in his chest. 

He could hear Mary breathing. She was close enough that he could smell her perfume. It was pleasant. He did not know what it was called. 

_Sorry_ he tried to say. He could not force the word to come. 

"John—" Mary said. Her voice was low.

"Please just leave," he said. 

"Let me help." 

"Go." 

She went. The door slammed shut behind her. 

John dropped the gun, shut his eyes, breathed out. His hand shook. 

He'd got her involved in this. A coworker. A woman he barely knew. He'd called her and put her right in the middle of something dangerous. She'd walked into his flat looking for him out of _concern,_ and—Christ, she could have come face-to-face with James Moriarty and his flat dead eyes. She could have—

_John_ could have—

He breathed out again, sank down onto the floor with his back against the wall. 

He'd drawn his gun on her. He'd almost shot her. He'd been so convinced. He'd thought—he'd let himself think—

What was he _doing?_

_You are an invalided soldier several years removed from the battlefield,_ Mycroft Holmes reminded him. His words had made John bristle, but he had not been entirely incorrect. 

His instincts had failed him. He was broken, out of practice. He'd been fooling himself, thinking he ought to remain a part of this, that he was somehow able to outthink, outmaneuver MI6, that any bloody thing he did from this point on could possibly be of any use to Sherlock at all. 

He took another deep breath, lifted his head up. Looked at the mess that had been made of his bedsit, his meagre belongings spilled carelessly across the floor. 

He wondered who had done it, if it had been Moriarty himself or some sort of henchman. Did criminal masterminds really have henchmen? A week ago this sort of thing had seemed distant and unreal, nothing more than a plot unfolding on a movie screen. Now—

Now it felt like he was losing his mind.

He'd pulled a gun on Mary. She'd probably already called the police to report him. 

He'd deserve whatever he got, he knew. And yet—

And yet, if he were to be arrested now, he'd likely never know what happened to Sherlock. He'd spend the rest of his miserable life wondering if he could have done something differently. 

He had to see this through. Whatever happened after—well—he'd deal with that when it happened. 

Mind made up, John pulled himself to his feet. He tucked his gun in the waistband of his trousers and went to pack his things. 

*

John's phone buzzed in his pocket as he walked, hunched against the chill damp air, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He stopped, earned a dirty look from two passerby who had to swerve to avoid walking into him. 

"Please," he said quietly, a soft prayer to whoever was listening. He lifted the phone out of his pocket without looking at the number on the screen. Pressed it against his ear, strained to hear over the busy city sounds. 

"John?" Sherlock's voice, low and strained and worried. 

He exhaled sharply, nearly doubled over under the weight of his relief. 

"Sherlock," he said. "Christ. I was—I thought—are you all right?" 

John ducked down the nearest alley. All of a sudden the city noise—the cars, the rumbling buses, the _people—_ had become overwhelming, deafening, cacophonous. 

"Sherlock," he said again. "You still there?" 

"I apologize," Sherlock said. "It appears I lost signal at some point last night." 

"Don't apologize," John said. He could have laughed from the relief of it all. "I thought that—well. Never mind. You just—you just—lost phone signal." 

"Yes, well, consciousness too. For a time," Sherlock admitted. "It's not—I don't think I'm—" 

"I met your brother," John cut him off, not wanting to hear what Sherlock was about to say. Not wanting to think that it could possibly be too late, after all of this. Not now. "Your handler." 

"Oh," Sherlock said. There was a mild note of surprise in his voice. 

"He's going to help you. He's working on it now. He's—handling it."

"Suppose I should be glad to hear he's still alive," Sherlock said softly. "I had begun to wonder." 

"Just—you just hold on. All right? Someone's coming for you, they're going to get you out. Your brother found the leak. It was Lady Smallwood." 

Silence from Sherlock for a long, terrible moment. And then: "Is that so?" 

"She never delivered my message," John said. He knew he was babbling but could not stop himself. "My first bloody message. Christ. If I'd realized—all that time—I thought I was helping and—" 

"If she managed to fool my brother, you really should not take offense over the fact that she managed to fool you as well," Sherlock said. He sighed, made a pained noise. "Not who I would have expected." 

"No?" John asked. He resumed walking, head down, phone pressed tight against his ear. He barreled through the crowd, not paying attention, not pausing to apologize. "Who'd you think it was, then?"

"I don't know," Sherlock said, and he sounded troubled. 

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to figure it out once you're back home," John said, all false bravado. He brushed past a woman as she exited a shop, noted the way she reached back with one hand to check that her bag was still in place. 

And he stopped walking. 

"Sherlock," he said, although Sherlock couldn't help him, Sherlock had no idea what he was thinking or seeing or doing, he had no idea what had happened—what had _almost_ happened—in John's flat earlier that day. 

Sherlock was speaking, but John heard none of it, the blood roaring in his ears as he thought back to Mary. Mary, peering out through the cracked bathroom door, one hand out of sight. Every instinct he possessed had been blaring a warning, and then he'd been flooded with embarrassment and shame when she'd finally emerged with phone in her hand and bag on her shoulder. 

She'd been armed, he'd been _certain_ of it, and he'd been wrong. 

Or had he? 

He'd never seen her hand. If she'd been quick about it, she could have easily dropped the gun in her purse and picked up a phone instead. She'd never broken eye contact with him. Not once. 

"Jesus," he said, barely speaking aloud at all, the word little more than a puff of breath past his lips. 

There had never been any fear in Mary's eyes. She'd been surprised, certainly. But not afraid. And she hadn't been afraid, hadn't had any _reason_ to be afraid, because she'd been in control of the situation the whole time. 

"John? John!" Sherlock's voice in his ear, hoarse and strained and alarmed.

"Sorry," he said. He pressed his lips together, continued walking. "Just—something just occurred to me."

"What is it?" 

"I'll sort it," John said. "Don't worry. Just—just focus on holding on, all right? They're coming for you." 

"Where are you now?" Sherlock asked.

"On my way back to your flat," John said.

"Oh," Sherlock said. "Good." 

John could have sworn there was a smile in his voice. He put his head down, walked a little faster.

*

Sherlock was still in his ear, not talking, just breathing, when John reached 221B Baker Street. He shifted his duffel bag on his shoulder so he could dig the key out of his pocket. It was impossible that the musty air in the front hallway should feel so welcoming, and yet it did. 

He did not pester Sherlock to speak, comforted by the sound of his continued indrawn breaths. As long as he was breathing, there was time. There was hope. He could be helped.

He _would_ be helped. 

The night before, listening to the steady pull of Sherlock's laboured breathing, he'd spoken of things he'd never before said out loud. Things he hadn't even told his therapist. He had no idea how much of it, if any, Sherlock had registered. But he'd told Sherlock that it helped to have someone there, and he'd meant it. 

He'd be there until the end, if need be. Whatever form that end took. 

John went up the stairs, phone tucked against his ear, and pushed through the door into the comfortable sitting room of Sherlock's flat. 

Then he stopped. Stared. 

There was a woman sitting in Sherlock's chair, watching his entrance with an amused expression. She was striking—pale skin and upswept dark hair and red lips. And she was entirely naked. 

"Um," John said. 

"It's about time," the woman said. "I was beginning to think you'd never show up." 

"John?" Sherlock asked in his ear. 

"I'm—" John swallowed, cleared his throat. "I'm going to need to call you back in a minute." 

He ended the call. 

"Was that him?" 

John put the phone in his pocket, crossed his arms. "Who the hell are you?" 

"Can't you make an educated guess?" she stood up from the chair, prowled towards him. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and she laughed. "What's the matter? Have I made you uncomfortable?" 

"Can you put something on?" 

"Why?" 

He smiled, a hard smile, one that pressed his lips together. "It's polite." 

"I find politeness a waste of time," she said. "Takes far too long to get to the point." 

He shifted where he stood, met her gaze. Refused to look lower. "And what, exactly, is the point?" 

She stepped away from him, picked up a dressing gown from the arm of the sofa and slipped into it. Turned back as she tied the sash, her eyes flashing. "You tell me. You're the one who asked for my help." 

The woman on the phone that morning. Sherlock's—friend. Or whatever she was. 

"Right," he said, unimpressed. "Had a change of heart, then?" 

"I did a bit of asking around," she said. "I believe I mentioned that I'm rather well-connected." 

"You also mentioned that you're dead," John said. "Funny. I find myself talking to a lot of dead people these days." 

"Enjoying yourself?" 

He smiled, a hard smile. Did not answer. 

"Sherlock's in Serbia," she said. Her voice was clipped, matter-of-fact. "Got himself embroiled in a rather colossal scheme, if I do say so myself. Things went badly, as they often do, and then he dropped off the radar. He was—well, you get the idea." 

"Let me guess," John said. "Assumed dead." 

She raised her brows, still smiling. "In any case, I've secured a safe house." 

"You." 

"Does that surprise you, Dr Watson?" 

He blinked at her use of his name, but decided it didn't really matter. Whoever the hell she was, she clearly didn't go anywhere unprepared. 

"A bit," he said. "How is it that you've secured a safe house in Serbia?" 

"I have a contact in the Serbian Cabinet of Ministers," she said. 

John stared at her for a moment, feeling very slow and very stupid. The entire conversation seemed surreal, improbable. "You—know someone in the Serbian Cabinet of Ministers." 

"Well. I know what he likes," she said. She smiled, the expression catlike and predatory and not at all pleasant. 

John's face flushed warm, and he looked away. Cleared his throat. "Right. Well. MI6 is working on getting him out, so—" 

"And you'd trust them with such a delicate operation? After everything you've seen? Dear me."

He frowned. Opened his mouth.

She cut him off. "I wouldn't trust anyone, Dr Watson. Where there's one leak, there's always another. And if MI6 remains compromised, he'll be found and killed before rescue ever reaches him. You know that's true," she said. 

John thought of Mycroft Holmes, stiff and guarded in the soft leather seat of his car. Thought of the sour expression on his face when he'd said _the leak has been contained._ Thought of Jim Moriarty, who had been clever enough and determined enough and crazy enough to track him down to Baker Street and attempt an abduction in broad daylight. 

A man like that wouldn't stop at one leak. 

"Jesus," John said. He pinched his brow, shut his eyes. When he opened them again, she was still watching him keenly. "What's your plan?" he asked her. 

"Give Sherlock the coordinates to the safe house. Tell him to get himself there. He'll receive immediate medical attention and a formal extraction will be arranged." 

"What if he can't make it there?" 

"Well," she said. "Then he'll have to take his chances. There's only so much I can do." 

"And what about—" 

"MI6?" She folded her arms across her chest. "You mustn't let on that anything's changed. With any luck, their leak will be revealed by the failed attempt on Sherlock's life." 

"Just so I have this right," John said. "You want me to—you want me to ask a severely injured man to leave the place where he's been safely hiding for the last several days. Even though help is on the way." 

"Yes," she said. 

"Because someone on that rescue team is going to kill him." 

"Most likely. And if not someone on the team, then someone set to arrive on site beforehand." She folded her hands together, frowned at him. "Either way, Sherlock returns home in a bag. Of course, he'd have a chance to put that pretty headstone to use, but somehow I think he'd prefer to avoid that option. Wouldn't you?" 

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment. There were cobwebs in the corners. He thought of Sherlock's voice on the phone, steadily weakening. His own resolve to do whatever it took to bring Sherlock home safely. Home. Home to this place and its cosy clutter. 

Home to her? 

He considered that for a moment, let the thought wash over him, let himself feel the irrational flare of jealousy before forcing it aside. He and Sherlock were strangers, really. Regardless of any kinship they seemed to share, at the end of the day Sherlock had his own life to return to and John—

John wanted to get him back to that life. To all of it. Even if it meant never seeing him again.

He shifted where he stood, returned his gaze to the woman. Did not speak. 

She stared back at him, her eyes cool. After a moment, she softened. "If this is going to work, you're going to need to trust me." 

He laughed, one sharp humourless bark. 

She smiled at the sound. "I understand your reluctance, of course." 

"Why?" he asked. "Why are you helping now?" 

She shrugged, the silken fabric of the dressing gown slipping against her slim shoulders. "I owe him a favour. I don't like being in anyone's debt." 

"You refused when we spoke before." 

"Yes, well, what people say and what they do are often quite different," she said. She tilted her head, fixed him with an expression that was incredibly difficult to read. "Don't you find that to be the case?" 

He did not know what to say to that. He scratched the back of his neck, uncomfortable. 

"What's your name?" he asked, finally. 

"Would knowing make it easier for you to trust me?" 

"No," he said.

A smile curled on her lips. "Irene." 

"Are you telling the truth?" 

"I suppose you'll never know," she said. 

"Right," he said. He took a deep breath, nodded. "All right. Give me the coordinates." 

*

After Irene had put on her coat and gone out into the rain, John sat down heavily on the battered leather sofa, put his head in his hands. 

For a moment, he simply breathed. Then he fished his phone out of his pocket, dialed Sherlock. Waited anxiously as it rang and rang. 

"Well, who was it?" Sherlock asked. 

John laughed, a soft huff of breath, leaned back against the sofa cushions. "Hello," he said.

"Clearly someone was waiting for you in the flat," Sherlock said. His voice was faint but insistent. 

"Yeah," John said. "Clearly." 

"Well?" 

"Your girlfriend, actually." 

"My what?" 

John wondered if he were imagining the faint note of alarm in Sherlock's voice. Wishful thinking, he supposed. And yet—

"Calls herself Irene," John said. "Pretty sure she stole your dressing gown. Well. One of them." 

"Oh, her," Sherlock said. The alarmed interest in his voice vanished. "What did she want?" 

"She seems to feel you're being set up." 

"Hm."

"She claims to know someone in the Serbian Cabinet of Ministers. She gave me coordinates to a safe house—she—she wants you to go there. Now." 

"Do you believe her?" Sherlock asked. He sounded curious. 

"Should I?" 

"That," Sherlock said, "is a very difficult question to answer." 

"Look," John said. He breathed out hard, sat forward on the sofa, put his elbows on his knees. The phone was warm against his ear. "She did have a point. About—about this bloke Moriarty. If he's as mad as he seems to be, if he's that dead set on finding you and killing you, he'd have a backup plan." 

Sherlock was silent for a long time, save for the steady rasp of his breathing. John could almost imagine the wheels turning in his head, the furious whirling thoughts in his feverish brain. 

All of that effort, John thought. All of that effort to reach Molly, to contact Mycroft, to go through unexpected channels. And now to ask Sherlock to risk moving, to _avoid_ the very help he'd finally managed to arrange—

"Where?" Sherlock asked. His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. "The safe house. Where is it?" 

John told him. 

Then he shut his eyes and hoped like hell that it was the right decision.


	8. Showdown

*

John paced the floor of the Baker Street flat like a caged animal. Outside, the rain beat steadily against the windows. 

Sherlock had hung up nearly an hour ago, after mumbling a string of fast-paced, nearly incomprehensible observations about traffic and delivery schedules and passerby and disguises. Then the stream of chatter had trailed off. 

"Oh," Sherlock had said, the sound barely audible, little more than a puff of air past his lips. He'd been silent for a moment, and then he'd taken a deep breath and added, "Thank you for your assistance, John. I do hope we'll speak again." 

"Wait," John said, startled, before realizing that he had nothing more to offer, no reason to delay Sherlock any further. "Er. Just. Be careful," he said, after an uncomfortable pause. 

"Caution doesn't really go hand in hand with this sort of work," Sherlock had said.

"Yes it bloody does," he'd said, but Sherlock had already gone. 

And then there was nothing to do but wait.

He'd always hated being passive. It got under his skin, the knowledge that there was something that needed _doing,_ and him expected to sit back and wait for someone else to handle it. 

So he paced. 

The flat was quiet. The walls seemed closer, somehow, the wildly clashing wallpaper pressing in on him. He clenched and unclenched his fists. 

John had put the choice in Sherlock's hands. Stay or go. Sherlock had elected to go. 

There was nothing more that could be done. Sherlock's fate would be decided when he reached the supposed safe house (or succumbed to his injuries, or was captured or otherwise intercepted along the way, or or or—) and no action that John took from this point out would make a difference. 

The rescue team—and, presumably, their embedded assassin, if such a person truly existed—would arrive to find Sherlock's hiding place deserted. 

Unless he'd left too late, unless he'd been too weak, too physically compromised, too ill. Unless—

John made a pained noise, went to the window, leaned his head against the fogged glass and looked out at the rain. His hands itched to maim, to heal, to _do._

He needed to do something. There was nothing to be done. Sherlock would live, or he would die, and there was _nothing that John could do about it._

His phone buzzed, and he jumped, whirled away from the window, scrambled to pull it from his pocket. The screen was dark, inactive, and he stared at it for a moment, bewildered, while his pocket continued to hum. 

His other pocket. 

His phone, his actual phone, not the one he'd been using to speak to Sherlock. 

John choked down his own disappointment, slipped the other phone out of his pocket. His stomach sank as he read the name flashing on the screen. 

Sarah.

"Hello," he said. 

"John," Sarah's voice was tight, uncomfortable. "You had a shift today." 

"Yeah," he said. He scratched at the back of his neck, went back to the window, looked out at the rain and persistent grey fog. Mycroft had said there was a security detail posted at Baker Street. He wondered where they were. Wondered why they had not picked up Irene on her way in. 

_Maybe she knew what they liked, too._

The silence had stretched on too long. He realized belatedly that Sarah was waiting for him to elaborate, to offer up some excuse. He could not think of a single thing to say.

"Are you all right?" she asked, finally. There was a sort of forced politeness to the question, an impatience that she could not quite conceal.

"Yes," he said, then winced. "Well, no. Something's come up. I'm sorry about—" 

"Look, I'm not really interested in—" she stopped, blew out a frustrated breath. "You knew, from our earlier conversation that—well. That it wasn't really working out. And now you've just sort of stopped showing up for work. So. I think we ought to just make this official, yeah?" 

"You're sacking me," he said. 

"Can you blame me?" 

"No," he said. 

"Right," she cleared her throat. "Good. Then I'll just need you to come down and turn in your laptop and keys." 

"Er—"

"Problem?" 

"Well. There was a bit of an accident. With the laptop." 

She sighed. He could nearly feel her irritation over the phone, coming through in waves. He was suddenly very sorry that he had not tried harder, that he'd let his apathy take over, that he'd worn his disinterest like a badge of honor.

He'd been trapped and miserable in his job, but it had never been Sarah's fault. He should have been honest enough with himself to walk away, years ago. 

"The keys, then," she said. "I'd like them back immediately." 

"Right," he said. "Yeah, I'll—" 

He hesitated, looked around the flat again. _Nothing else you can do,_ he reminded himself. 

He doubted he even had much to worry about from Moriarty. If Irene was right (and Sherlock certainly seemed to be betting his life that she was), Moriarty was likely now leaning on his second leak, his backup plan. John had delivered his information to MI6, and had therefore served his use. There would be no point pursuing him, unless Moriarty fancied himself the vindictive type. 

It was possible, John supposed. But, then again, he was armed, and he knew what Moriarty looked like. He'd not let himself be caught off guard again.

"I'll come now." 

"Oh," Sarah said. She cleared her throat. "Good." 

Silence fell between them again.

"Right," John said. "Er. See you, then." 

He disconnected the call, put the phone in his pocket. Paused to glance again at the other phone, but the screen remained dark. 

He picked up his coat, tried to ignore the worry bubbling up from somewhere deep in his chest. 

*

The waiting room was empty, and John hesitated as he walked through the door. He chanced a glance at the reception desk, but there was no one occupying Mary's chair.

John breathed out hard through his nose, went through the side door into the short hallway leading to the offices and exam rooms. 

He stopped at Sarah's door, knocked lightly. 

"Hi," he said. 

Sarah glanced up from the chart she was reading. There was a harried, slightly harassed look about her. Her hair, normally quite neat, had begun to pull loose of its pony tail. Her lab coat hung askew on her shoulders. 

"John," she said. She did not look particularly happy to see him. 

"Just—bringing back the keys," he said. "Like you asked." 

She stood up, crossed the room towards him. 

"I have a patient waiting," Sarah said. 

He looked down at the ground. "Right. Sorry. I—" 

"Do you mind waiting for me in your office? There are a few things I want to go over, but—" 

"Sure," he said. He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I could always—" 

"No," she said. "There's no need. Just—just go have a seat. I won't be long." 

She brushed past him without another word, her face tight and unhappy. 

He waited for a moment, unsettled, before turning and making his way down the hall to his little office. He flipped the light on, hung his coat, and sat down in the squeaky chair behind the desk. He looked at the bland painting on the wall, the same way he'd done for the last three years, and marveled that this would likely be the last time he ever saw it. 

There was a dull, sick worry in the pit of his stomach. He fought against the urge to take the phone out of his pocket and look at it. 

_Please,_ he thought, not quite sure who he was beseeching. Please. 

There were footsteps, soft on the carpet outside his office. He sat back in his chair, schooled his expression, set the keys on top of the worn surface of his desk. 

The woman who walked through the door was not Sarah. 

He jerked to his feet, his hands clenching. 

"Lady Smallwood," he said. "What—?"

She studied him for a moment without speaking. Then she shut the door behind her, folded her arms. 

She was slight of frame, unassuming. Her grey hair was tucked behind her ears. He thought that perhaps James Bond had got it wrong after all, spies should never stand out in a room, should never draw the eye. No wonder Sherlock had been captured.

There was a small smile playing on her lips. She did not look like someone who had been arrested and interrogated. 

"What the hell is going on?" he asked. 

"I'm here for the phone, of course," she said. She held out her hand. 

He did not move from behind the desk. 

"We'll need it to coordinate rescue efforts. After everything you've gone through to help, you wouldn't want to impede his extraction, would you?" 

"I'm not the one impeding anything," he said. 

"A simple misunderstanding," she said. "Nothing more." 

"Right." 

"The phone, please," she said. 

"Not happening." 

She withdrew a small pistol from her bag, trained it on him. "I'll not ask again." 

John smiled tightly, met her gaze. His own gun pressed against his back. He did not dare reach for it.

She took a small step forward, then another, though she did not move within striking range. The barrel of her gun gleamed under the overhead fluorescents. 

"Your reticence is endangering the life of an agent. I could threaten you with imprisonment," she said.

"We both know that's not at all what you're threatening," he said, and looked pointedly at the gun. 

"No," she said, with another strange little smile. "I suppose not." 

"Did you have Sarah call me?" 

"Well, I couldn't exactly have met you at Baker Street. Too many eyes on you," she shrugged, an oddly resigned and unassuming gesture. "I've always preferred to manage these sorts of exchanges at the aquarium, actually. Suits a certain lifestyle. Ghostly. Living in shadows." She shrugged again. "Though I imagine it might have taken a good deal of convincing to get you to go there. I made do with what was available to me." 

John swallowed. There were no sounds outside the office door, no footsteps, no conversation. Sarah might have left the building, or— 

"Did you harm her?" 

"Of course not," she said.

He thought about the empty waiting room, the tense look on Sarah's face when he'd arrived. The way she'd rushed through their conversation. He felt a sick wave of guilt.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked. 

"Trying to ensure our agent makes it home safely? That's my job, Dr Watson." 

"Right," he said, smiling tightly. 

"I would rather not escalate this any further than we need to," she said, and jiggled the gun in her hand a little bit. "But I will, if necessary. You can still walk out of here. It's your choice." 

In his pocket, the phone began to buzz. Sherlock's phone.

John closed his eyes for a moment, breathed out. When he opened them, Lady Smallwood was watching him with keen interest. 

"Are you going to answer that?" 

The phone buzzed again. 

"It's my landlord," John said. "I'm a bit behind on rent. Don't really feel like talking to him right now." 

His pocket vibrated again.

"Answer it," she said. 

"No, thanks, I'm good." 

She took a step forward, jabbing the gun in his direction. Behind her, John's office door splintered inward with a clattering crash as if kicked. Smallwood's hand jerked in surprise and she fired, a round burying itself in the wall. 

John flung himself to the ground behind his desk, yanking his own gun out of the waistband of his trousers. He scrambled up to his knees, keeping Smallwood in his line of sight as Mary stepped through the door, dressed all in black, silenced pistol in hand. 

Even though he'd suspected, even though he'd _known,_ the sight still shocked him. 

"Mary," he said. He wavered, aiming first at Smallwood, then at Mary. 

Mary did not even glance in his direction. "We meet at last," she said, her voice cold, her gaze fixed on Smallwood.

"Oh," Smallwood said. Her face contorted in an expression of dismayed surprise. "This is—unexpected." 

"John," Mary said without looking at him. "If you could make up your mind, that'd be great. You keep waving that gun around and it's distracting." 

John ground his teeth together, aimed at Mary.

"Excellent," she said dryly, still not looking at him. 

"You lied to me," he said.

"And you knew I was lying, so I fail to see the problem." 

"Who—" 

"Not really the time," she said. "I'm a little busy." 

"I'll wait," he said, not lowering the gun.

"Don't suppose you feel like handing me that phone?" 

"Definitely not," John said. He looked again from Mary to Smallwood. The phone had gone silent and still in his pocket. 

"You're supposed to be dead," Smallwood said, somewhat peevishly. 

"Sorry to disappoint you," Mary said. She cleared her throat. "John? Maybe you'd like to reconsider where you're pointing that gun?" 

"Why should I?" 

"Because she's trying to kill you, and I'm trying to help you." 

He laughed humourlessly. "Help me?" 

"Been following you around for days, trying not to let you get yourself killed." 

"Really," he said. "And why would you do that?" 

Mary pressed her lips together, did not answer.

"Made that good of a first impression on you?" he said, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. "Really wanted that coffee, yeah?" 

The office door creaked on its tilted hinges. John readjusted his grip on the gun, waited. His mouth had gone dry. 

Mycroft pushed open the door, entered with a slow and cautious step. He looked from Mary to Smallwood to John, his gaze cool. He did not seem at all perturbed by the guns.

"Well," he said, after a moment. He turned back to Smallwood, tilted his head. "I believe I will owe Lady Smallwood a most sincere apology." 

"What?" John said. 

"She never had anything to do with this at all, did she?" Mycroft persisted. 

"A convenient cover." 

"Yes," he said. "So I see." 

"What's going on?" A trickle of sweat ran down John's back, cold between his shoulder blades.

"That—" Mycroft inclined his head. "Is not Lady Smallwood." 

John blinked. Shook his head, blinked again. "But—" 

"She introduced herself as such," Mycroft said. "You'd have had no reason to suspect otherwise." 

"Then who is she?" 

Not-Smallwood opened her mouth. Mycroft cut her off.

"Lady Smallwood's secretary," he said. "Vivian Norbury. And, apparently, the source of our mysterious leak." 

"Great," John said. "Yeah. All right. Because that clears everything up." His knees had begun to ache and he shifted against the rough grey carpeting, looked at Mycroft. 

"How long have you been selling secrets?" Mycroft asked. His voice was mild. He might have been asking her what she'd had for lunch. 

"Long enough," Norbury said. "I've done quite well for myself. Got a nice cottage out of it." 

"And I imagine if I looked further, if I pulled on some of your threads, the trail would lead straight back to Lady Smallwood." 

Norbury did not respond, but lifted her chin slightly. 

"A cottage, you say? Where?" 

"Cornwall," she said. 

"Ah," Mycroft nodded gravely. "Well. Pity you won't be using it." 

"You could let me go," Norbury said. 

"Why would I do that?" 

"Because I can save your brother's life with one phone call," she said. "It might not be too late." 

Mycroft stared at her for a long moment. There was something terribly cold and grave in his expression. "What have you done?" 

"You know what I've done. I've sold secrets," she said, her lip curling up.

"James Moriarty knows where Sherlock is?" 

"Your supposed rescue mission is anything but." 

Mycroft went very still.

John readjusted his grip on his gun, glanced once more at Mary, who had not moved. Her expression was cold, focused, a far cry from the warm mischievous smiles she'd thrown in his direction. 

"What guarantee do I have that you'll stop this?" Mycroft asked. He spoke slowly, his voice low and resigned. 

"I'll call it off," Norbury said. "Right now. I'll tell Moriarty he's been moved. That I didn't know it was happening until the pieces had been put into motion. All you have to do is let me walk away." 

"He might let you walk away," Mary said. "But I won't." 

John thought of the phone that had vibrated, unanswered, in his pocket. He looked again at Mary, at Mycroft, at Norbury who was inching towards the door. He breathed out through his nose, his heart thudding against his ribs. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air from the shot Norbury had fired into the wall. 

It felt like the battlefield, and though he was several years removed from action, his mind and body were ready. He stood up, slowly, from behind the desk, still holding his gun. Took another breath, carefully shifted his aim from Mary to Norbury. 

"Dr Watson," Mycroft said. "This—" 

"She doesn't need to make any phone calls. If you have people here to arrest her, do it." 

"He'll die," Norbury said, her voice a little high, a little desperate.

"No," John said. "He won't." 

Mycroft looked at him sharply, his eyes narrowing. "What are you talking about?" 

"Sherlock's gone." 

"Gone where?" 

"Somewhere safe," John said, and hoped he wasn't lying. 

"Dr Watson, I ask that you explain yourself before this situation gets out of hand—" 

John slipped the phone out of his pocket, dialed. Held his breath as it began to ring. 

"John?" Sherlock's voice, weak but stable, alive, _alive._

Mycroft rocked back on his heels ever-so-slightly, his face carefully blank, his eyes telling another story entirely. 

"Are you all right?" John demanded. "Did you make it? Is it—is everything—?" 

"Exactly as promised," Sherlock said. He breathed out slowly. When he spoke again, his voice was hesitant, uncertain. "Thank you, John. I have no doubts that your actions have directly saved my life, and—"

John laughed, feeling ten years younger, feeling suddenly lighter and freer than he had in ages. "You've got a bit of an audience, Sherlock." 

Sherlock's voice cut off abruptly. 

John looked at Mycroft, raised his brows. 

"It appears," Mycroft said, after a moment, raising his voice so that he could be heard over the phone in John's hand. "That we were mistaken about the source of our leak. An unforgivable oversight that I am rectifying as we speak." 

He leveled a dark look at Vivian Norbury. 

"Oh, good," Sherlock said. "It's always nice when you finally start paying attention." 

"I'm glad you're all right, brother," Mycroft said. He seemed to want to say more, pressed his lips together instead. After a moment, he cleared his throat. "An extraction team will be at your location tonight. A thoroughly vetted team. You're receiving adequate care?" 

"I've been in more comfortable surroundings, but it'll do," Sherlock said. 

There were heavy footsteps in the hall, heading towards the office door. John looked at Mary, whose expression tightened. He shook his head. 

For a moment he saw something dark flash in her eyes. She looked at the door, then at Norbury. Her finger twitched. Then she breathed out, lowered her gun with some hesitance. 

The men that came through the door were bland-featured, dark-suited and utterly focused. Norbury's shoulders slumped as she was handcuffed, moved roughly out into the hallway. They did not speak, did not so much as glance in John's direction. 

"So that's what it's like to be disappeared," John muttered. A chill ran down his spine.

Mycroft raised his brows at him. Then he shifted his gaze to Mary. "Now. For the other pressing matter in the room. Ms—Morstan? Is that the name you're going by these days?" 

Mary tightened her grip on her gun, but did not lift it. 

"How do you fit into all of this?" Mycroft pressed. He looked at her, and then rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't look so surprised. We've been aware of your movements ever since you reentered London. Despite what recent events might suggest, we're not _entirely_ incompetent." 

John looked down at the phone in his hand. Sherlock had not disconnected the call. 

"Your first instinct will be to lie, but I ask that you spare us the tedium. I already know about your—freelance work," Mycroft said. "Including the jobs you did for James Moriarty." 

That got John's attention. He looked up sharply, glad he was still holding his gun. 

"Well," Mary said. "There was a shortage of legitimate job opportunities for someone with my skillset. Thanks to your organization and its _incompetence._ I took work where I could get it." 

"To what end?" 

"My team was betrayed and murdered. What do you think?" 

"What—" John blinked, looked between Mary and Mycroft. "Team? What are you—" 

"Clearly one of my brother's pet assassins has gone rogue," Sherlock piped up. He sounded mildly amused. 

"Not _my_ assassin, Sherlock," Mycroft said. He frowned, narrowed his eyes at Mary. "Not officially, in any case." 

"Easier to cut ties that way," Mary said. Bitterness had seeped into her tone. 

"Well," Sherlock said. "Since no one seems interested in offering up an explanation, perhaps you'll allow me?" 

Mary scoffed, opened her mouth to protest. 

Mycroft made a pained noise, shut his eyes briefly. 

John smiled, a wave of fondness crashing over him. He turned up the volume on the phone. 

"Betrayed and murdered, you said," Sherlock said thoughtfully. "Well. Hazard of that kind of work, I suppose. Your kind operates unofficially, as Mycroft said. Top secret. You—rightly—suspected an inside informant. But you wouldn't know where the leak originated, you'd have no idea who to trust. You'd not be able to return home, no, better to play dead. Work a bit of freelance to keep yourself in the game. Is that how you encountered Moriarty?" 

Mary pressed her lips together. "Yes," she said, finally. 

"I imagine the working conditions were a bit more volatile than you were used to," Sherlock said. "Still, needs must. Until you heard a _whisper._ "

"What are you talking about?" John asked.

Sherlock breathed in, and when he spoke again his voice was rapidfire. "You'd have wanted revenge, of course—your entire team betrayed and murdered, your life snatched away in an instant. But it's difficult to exact revenge when you don't know who betrayed you. So you kept your head down, kept working, did whatever you were paid to do until suddenly a gift dropped right into your lap. Too good to resist." 

"You," Mary said. 

John glanced at Mycroft, who had not taken his eyes off of Mary. 

"Me," Sherlock agreed. "The younger brother of a well-placed member of the British government. Officially deceased. Unofficially… well, let's say deeply undercover. And someone on the inside, whispering to Moriarty all of my little secrets. I assume you attached yourself to John as soon as you'd identified him as the source?" 

It had been the next day, John recalled. He'd gone to the SIS building and delivered his message, not to Lady Smallwood but to Vivian Norbury. Moriarty had shown up at the surgery almost immediately after, posing as Jim-from-IT and sniffing around John's laptop, feeling him out. And Mary, Mary had slotted into the receptionist position the very next day, easily disarming him with her quick wit and warm smile. 

"Christ," John said. He shut his eyes. 

"You knew if you waited long enough, the source of the leak would be revealed," Sherlock said. "Allowing you to both take your revenge _and_ position yourself in my brother's good graces. The disgraced assassin, returning to foil a dastardly inside scheme, earning both forgiveness and gratitude. Has rather a nice ring to it, don't you think?" 

"You're seeking protection," Mycroft said. 

"I'm seeking revenge," Mary corrected. "Protection is secondary." 

"I can assure you that Vivian Norbury will pay dearly for what she has done." 

Mary stared at him for a long moment, nodded. She did not break eye contact. "Right. I'll take the protection, then." 

"I haven't agreed." 

"I've been trying to help your brother."

"You've been helping yourself." 

"Have you been following John the whole time?" Sherlock asked curiously. 

John thought of his ever-growing paranoia, the eyes he'd felt on him everywhere he'd gone.

"Moriarty made an attempt on his life," Mary said. "I may have stayed close enough to discourage it from happening again." 

"The protection," Sherlock said. 

"Sherlock," Mycroft said, looking up at the ceiling. "I cannot simply—" 

"Without John Watson, I would be dead. Surely this is the least you can do." 

"Sherlock—"

"A new identity should suffice. Or—perhaps a job?"

"Come, Ms Morstan," Mycroft said. His voice was pained. "We'll discuss further in my office." 

Mary slipped her gun back into its holster. She turned to look at John. 

"I'd apologize for lying to you," she said. "But—"

"But you're not sorry," John said. He gave her a tight smile. 

"No," she said. "I'm not." 

"Right," he said. He scratched at the back of his neck, suddenly very tired.

Mary went out through the office door, Mycroft behind her.

"That's it?" John asked. "Just like that? It's all over?" 

"Were you hoping for something a bit more dramatic? Fire and brimstone?" Mycroft gave him a thin smile as he lingered in the doorway. "Real life is not the battlefield, Dr Watson. Though I suspect that's what you see when you walk with Sherlock Holmes." 

Mycroft tapped his hand on the doorframe. 

"Try to stay out of trouble," he added. "And—I suggest you hang up that phone. My brother rarely lets an opportunity to show off pass him by, and I fear you've rather overindulged him in that regard. There will be no living with him, now." 

"Oh, piss off," Sherlock said. 

John snorted, amused in spite of himself. Mycroft disappeared through the door, his footsteps steady and whisper quiet on the carpeting. 

The silence left behind was unnerving. 

John walked back to his desk, dropped heavily into his chair. He put the safety back on his gun, left it lying warm and heavy in his lap like a favoured pet. 

"You're really all right?" he asked.

"If one uses an incredibly loose definition of _all right,_ " Sherlock said. "But I'm not in immediate danger, which I assume is what you really want to know." 

"Yeah," John said. He leaned his head back, shut his eyes. "That's what I wanted to know." 

He listened to Sherlock breathing on the other end of the line. He did not know why he still had the connection open. It was over. His role in all of this was done. 

Still, Sherlock did not seem inclined to hang up either. 

"Moriarty," John said. "He's just—gone? Disappeared back into the woodwork?" 

"Mm," Sherlock agreed. "He does tend to do that." 

"He'll still be looking for you." 

"And I'll be looking for him." 

"Well. That all sounds a bit exhausting," John said. 

Sherlock made an amused murmuring sound, not quite a laugh. 

"This is sweet," a lilting, teasing voice from the doorway. 

John jolted, looked up. 

Jim Moriarty stood in the doorway, smiling. His hair was slicked back, his eyes dark. 

"You hang up first. No, you hang up first. No, you." Moriarty's smile split into a wide grin. "Just _adorable._ Ugh. I almost hate to interrupt." 

John spared a thought for Mycroft, for Mary, for MI6 who had come and gone and somehow missed this. 

"It's over," John said. "You've lost." 

"Oh, you didn't think Irene was actually helping, did you?" Moriarty gave a little giggle, stepped further into the room.

John's heart sank. 

"She came right to me, you know. Told me everything. I have men on the ground right now, ready to exterminate my little pest problem." 

"All right," Sherlock said. His voice was tired. "You win, then. Congratulations. Now just get it over with and leave John alone." 

"No," John said. "No, that's—"

"You never said such sweet things about me," Moriarty said, his face crumpling into a pout. His eyes were fathomless pits, dark and impossible to read. 

"He was never part of your game." 

"You made him part of it," Moriarty said.

"He was a convenient tool, that's all." 

"I don't believe you," Moriarty said, dragging out his words in an odd sing-song pattern. "But that's all right. He'll get the chance to listen to you die, and know that I never could have done it without his help." 

John's mouth went dry. 

Moriarty took a phone out of his own pocket, held it cradled in the palm of his hand.

"Wait for it," he said. 

The screen lit up and it began to ring. Music. The Bee Gees. Incongruously cheerful and out of place. Moriarty let the song play for a moment, his eyes shut. Then he answered the call. 

"Are you in position?" he asked. The weird cheer had gone out of his voice, leaving it flat. He smiled, his lips curling away from his teeth. 

"Sherlock," John said. 

"They're breaching the door now," Moriarty said. He kept his eyes fixed on John, unblinking. His smile did not waver.

John squeezed the phone in his hand. He could hear nothing but Sherlock's steady breathing. He sounded calm, ready. Unruffled.

"Door has been breached," Moriarty said. His expression flickered, attention pulled briefly from John, though he was still smiling. "Leave no one alive." 

"Sherlock," John said again. He squeezed the phone tightly. 

Sherlock started to laugh. 

John jolted in his seat, looked up. The laughter did not sound hysterical, or crazed, or desperate. It was a slow rising chuckle, deep and rumbling. 

"What do you mean, _there's no one there?_ " the smug mask slipped from Moriarty's face as he gripped the phone. His mouth contorted in anger. "WHERE IS HE?" 

Sherlock was still laughing, laughing so hard he had started coughing. 

"You might want to reconsider your alliances," Sherlock said. 

_Christ, she sent him to the wrong house,_ John thought, and then he started laughing too. 

Moriarty stared at him. He opened his mouth. 

John lifted the gun from his lap and pulled the trigger. 

Moriarty dropped to the ground without fanfare, a neat hole in his forehead, a look of surprise on his face. His head lolled to the side. 

John looked at him, then reengaged the safety on his gun and set it down on his desk. His hand shook. 

"John," Sherlock said. He had stopped laughing. "John? John!" 

"Yeah," John said. He lifted the phone and pressed it to his ear. It was warm against his skin. "He's dead. I shot him." 

Silence.

"Sherlock?" 

"You shot him." 

"Yes." 

"The most accomplished and devious criminal mastermind the world has ever seen, a man with veritable empires under his command, and you've just shot him. Just like that." 

"Well," John said. He tipped his head back, breathed out hard. "Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one. Yeah?" 

A pause, and then Sherlock began to giggle again. The sound started out small, then built until John could not help but join in. It felt good to laugh. Something tight relaxed in his chest.

"Just—" John said, after he'd caught his breath. "You really can't die on me, now. I'm going to need your brother's help with this one. Not keen on going to prison, yeah? Not for him." 

"Consider it taken care of," Sherlock said. He sounded tired, but there was still a smile in his voice. 

"So you're—"

"Really all right, yes," Sherlock said. 

"And you're getting out. Tonight." 

"If all goes according to plan." 

"And do things often go according to plan?" 

Sherlock huffed out another laugh, did not answer.

Silence stretched between them. 

"Well," John said. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "If you ever need help arranging another daring escape, you, er, you know where to find me." 

"Mm," Sherlock said. "Think I'll be taking a break from the spy business for a while. Not really my area." 

"Right," John said. 

The connection crackled. 

"My battery is running low," Sherlock said. "I should save it. I'll need to make contact with Mycroft." 

"Oh, right, yeah," John stood up. He felt oddly alone, exposed, alone in the office with a dead man on the floor. "Er—take care, yeah? It was nice—ha—well, not _nice_ exactly, but I'm. Well. Glad we met." 

"Dinner," Sherlock said. 

John nearly dropped the phone. "Sorry, what?" 

"Dinner. When I'm back in London," Sherlock spoke rapidly, as if aware their connection could be severed at any moment. "Lazarus took four days to rise from the dead, but I fear there may be something of an extended hospital stay in my future. Let's make it two weeks. There's a little Italian place on Northumberland Street. Angelo's." 

"Northumberland Street," John echoed. He nodded, though no one could see him. 

"Two weeks. I'll meet you there. I'd like to—I'd like the opportunity to thank you in person." 

"All right," John said. He had the foolish, fleeting thought: _I'd like to thank you in person, too,_ and hastily tamped it down. 

Sherlock did not respond. The line crackled, disconnected. 

John looked at the phone in his hand, the ludicrously expensive little phone that had changed his life. The screen had gone dark. 

Moriarty was still slumped on the floor where he'd fallen, face frozen in its rictus of surprise. His blood had splashed across the bland painting of trees that John had spent years loathing. 

John thought of the many times that the faces of the dead had haunted his sleep over the years. The twisted guilt and remorse and longing that had dogged him since the war. 

He stared at Moriarty, searched for any twinge of guilt, any remorse. He found none. He thought he'd sleep just fine tonight.


	9. Home

*

John went home. 

Back to his tiny little flat with its faulty heater. He picked up the fallen furniture, rearranged his ransacked drawers. Ordered himself a new mattress. Swept up the feathers and broken glass on the floor. 

He set the key to the Baker Street flat on his kitchen counter, tried not to look at it.

He kept Sherlock's phone charged up, left it plugged in and silent on his bedside table. He tried not to look at that, too. 

*

Four days later, Sarah agreed to meet him for coffee. 

They sat stiffly in a little café, pressed a bit too close by the morning rush. She curled her hands protectively around a hot mug.

"I'm glad you're all right," he said. "And—sorry. For all of that." 

"You were a rubbish employee, John," she said, and lifted her gaze to meet his. She smiled. 

"Yes, yeah, I—" he laughed. "I know. Sorry." 

"I'm not hiring you back."

"I wouldn't dream of asking." 

"What in the world did you get yourself mixed up in?" 

He shrugged, looked down at his own steaming mug. "I can't really share details. Classified." 

She snorted, leaned back in her chair. "A woman with some very intimidating credentials shows up in my office, clears out all of my patients, _holds me at gunpoint_ and tells me to call you and arrange for you to come down. Next thing I know, the whole place is taped off, there are more people with even _more_ intimidating credentials telling me I can't enter my own building because of a gas leak. A gas leak! Days go by, and finally I'm allowed in, only to find the entire place has been scrubbed clean, repainted, and the carpeting has been replaced. They even took the painting in your office, John. And the best I can get from you is _classified_? Really?" 

He shrugged again, smiled because there was no real anger in her voice, just a mildly amused impatience. "Sorry. Best I can do. I brought you your keys back, though." 

"I'm sending you a bill for the laptop," she said. 

*

The rain let up. 

John walked. He re-familiarized himself with London streets he'd been navigating on autopilot for years. He marveled at his legs, steady and strong beneath him. 

He wondered where Sherlock was—if he'd been brought back to London to recover, or if he was being treated elsewhere. 

He read the papers, and was pleased when news broke that cast doubt on the New Scotland Yard corruption case. Sherlock Holmes' sullied name was cleared. Regrettably, the media noted, it had not happened in time to save his life. 

There was no mention whatsoever of what had happened in his office. Not once did Vivian Norbury's name appear, nor Mary Morstan, nor James Moriarty. 

He no longer felt eyes on him. 

Paranoia seemed a strange thing to miss, but he found himself missing it regardless. He'd felt more alive during the few days he'd spent assisting Sherlock than he had in years. 

He walked past the Baker Street flat a handful of times. He did not let himself stop to look up at the windows. 

He'd need to find a new job, he knew, if he wished to remain in London. And he found himself wanting very much to remain in London. 

*

He didn't look at the phone.

The phone didn't ring.

*

Two weeks passed very slowly. 

*

Angelo's was a charming little restaurant, cozy and intimate, with comfortable booths and hanging lamps that cast a warm golden glow. 

John went inside, tugging at his coat. He was overwarm, despite the chill in the air. 

There was no sign of Sherlock, so he accepted a little table by the window, ordered a bottle of wine. Waited. 

He drank his wine in slow sips, just to have something to do with his hands. Watched the taxis and the cars and the pedestrians move past the window. 

A waiter, clumsy and hovering, set a basket of bread down on the table and attempted to explain the chef's specials on offer. His accent was thick, French, struggling to wrap around the pronunciation of the Italian dishes. 

"Thanks," John interrupted, looking past the man into the dimly lit restaurant, his gaze flitting over happy couples and smiling families and raucous gatherings. No Sherlock. "But I'm waiting for someone." 

The waiter left, mumbling and shaking his head. John took another sip of wine. 

Something could have gone wrong, he supposed. Sherlock had been doing poorly by the time he'd reached the safe house. Sometimes, with physical trauma, with infections—just because the immediate danger had passed, it didn't guarantee a good outcome. And no one was obligated to tell him anything, not really. What could he reasonably expect? Mycroft showing up at his door to tell him that all of his efforts had been in vain? 

Or perhaps Sherlock had simply changed his mind. He'd had weeks to recover, to reconsider the forced camaraderie they'd shared. Weeks to regret his spontaneous invitation. 

_I'd like the opportunity to thank you in person,_ Sherlock had said. 

_I'd like to thank you in person, too,_ John had not said. 

He should have said it. There were a lot of things he should have said. 

He drained another glass of wine, thought about the Baker Street flat. There was nothing stopping him from knocking on the door, he supposed. Although if Sherlock had simply decided against meeting him, such a move would be unwelcome. Awkward. Uncomfortable. 

He watched the people around him eat their meals, drink their wine, slide into comfortable conversations. They ate dessert and paid and were summarily replaced with new people. He did not know how much time had passed. 

The waiter fussed over his table, replaced the bread basket when the supply ran low. Tried again to recite the specials. 

John let him talk, did not meet his eyes. He did not want to see the pity or impatience. 

The waiter went away. 

John finished his wine. 

The restaurant was no longer quite so crowded. The last lingering diners were finishing their meals, their conversations low and hushed. 

John looked at his empty glass, the empty bottle. He felt tired and old and foolish, and he wondered what had possessed him to sit there for so long. It had been obvious for quite a while that Sherlock was not coming. 

"Can I interest you in dessert?" the waiter asked him. His accent was thick enough to almost sound false. 

"No," John said, startling a little bit. The wine he'd drunk sloshed unpleasantly in his empty stomach. He should go. It had been hours. "Sorry. I'll—I guess a bloke ought to know when he's been stood up, yeah?" 

"Eeez very rude," the waiter said. 

"Sorry," John said again. He shifted in his seat, fumbling for his wallet. "Sorry." 

The waiter slipped into the seat in front of him, slapped both hands on the table. 

John blinked, startled, his hand frozen on his wallet. "What are you—?" 

The waiter was studying him, his expression intense and focused. His eyes were pale and keen behind thick glasses, his mouth curling into an odd smile underneath a—a drawn-on moustache. 

"Surprise," he said, the French accent falling away. 

John shut his eyes, blew out a breath of air through his teeth. "Jesus," he said, and he almost laughed. Almost. His face had gone hot. He opened his eyes, looked back at Sherlock.

Sherlock was dipping a linen napkin in John's water glass, using it to mop the scribbled moustache from his upper lip. 

"Didn't seem odd to you, a French waiter at an Italian restaurant?" 

John shrugged, fought back another inappropriate laugh, a little helpless convulsion. "I suppose, yeah, but—" he met Sherlock's gaze again, watched as the other man slipped off his glasses, deftly untied the bowtie at his neck. All of a sudden he looked a lot less like the tall, uncertain waiter who had hovered around John's table all night, prattling on about the specials, and a lot more like the suave secret agent he surely was. 

Christ, he was attractive. The skin around his mouth had flushed up red where he'd wiped away the moustache, making him look as if he'd been recently and thoroughly snogged, like stubble had dragged rough against that pale skin and— _drop that train of thought right now—_

Sherlock noticed him noticing, and his movements stilled. He frowned. "What?" 

"Master of disguise, you are," John said. "They teach that at MI6?" 

"Disguise is more than just deploying costumes and funny voices," Sherlock said. "It's how you make use of your surroundings. Take a tuxedo, for example. Versatile thing, the tuxedo. Lends distinction to friends, anonymity to waiters. The natural anonymity of a waiter in a tuxedo coupled with your own distraction made it easy enough to pass unnoticed. You never even made eye contact. Simple, really." 

"Distraction," John said. His face burned. He wanted to stand up and leave with whatever dignity he still possessed, wanted to disappear, wanted never to have sat down at all. "Right. And—why didn't you say something sooner?" 

"The last few years have instilled a sort of natural caution," Sherlock said. Then he smiled, a small, crooked thing. "I had to be sure you weren't a complete idiot." 

"And you're able to get that from watching me sit alone at a table, drinking wine?" 

Sherlock lifted his brows. His expression was cool, smug. 

"Right. Complete idiot. Got that," John said. He opened his wallet, placed a few notes on the table. Stood up. Nodded. "Well. Pleasure meeting you. I'll just—" 

"Wait," Sherlock said, and some of the smugness went out of his voice. He stood up as well, not particularly gracefully, his hands fluttering at his sides. 

John hesitated. The restaurant had emptied around them. There was a busboy in the back, quietly clearing tables. Glasses and plates clinked together. 

He had sat at that little table for _ages._ He'd noticed nothing. Sherlock would not have had to watch him for very long to determine that he was, indeed, a complete idiot. 

"Sorry," Sherlock said. He pursed his lips, looked down at the ground. He fidgeted with his hands. "It was not my intention to upset you."

John picked his coat up off of the chair, folded it over his arm, did not put it on. "Then what—?"

"I've read your file," Sherlock said.

John sighed. "Your brother did say he had one of those, yeah." 

"You assisted in a major intelligence operation, of course you have a file." 

"Of course," John said. He shifted where he stood, waited. 

Sherlock hesitated, studied him for a moment. "Nothing in that file predicted your behaviour." 

John put his coat back down, folded his arms across his chest. "What behaviour, exactly?" 

"You did—more. Than anyone would have expected you to, when faced with this particular set of circumstances." 

This time John did laugh, a sharp bark that he could not keep contained. He unfolded his arms, pinched the bridge of his nose. Thought, wildly, of the charade he'd put on to get close enough to speak to Molly Hooper. "Yeah, I—I guess I did." 

"I simply wanted to observe. I needed to understand." 

"Understand what? How big of an idiot I really am?" John looked away.

"Why? Why did you—" Sherlock hesitated. He looked unsure. He clasped his hands behind his back, tucked his chin, furrowed up his brow as he looked at John. "Why did you go to such lengths to help me? Delivering my first message is understandable, but after that, particularly once it became apparent that there was a risk to your life, there was no reason for you to continue." 

John stared at him for a moment. Shrugged. His mouth had gone dry. He was not sure he had an answer, at least not one he could speak out loud. 

"Queen and country," Sherlock said. His voice flattened out. "The good soldier." 

"Yeah, mate, I haven't been a soldier for a long time. You've read my file, you already know that." 

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand. "I don't need a file to see that. But it's my understanding that certain—ideals—never leave you." 

John breathed out through his nose, looked up at the ceiling. "Right. Well. Probably not. But—just—" 

He looked back at Sherlock. Really looked at him. Remembered the haggard, bloodied face he'd first glimpsed in the shadows through their initial tenuous connection. The tangled, matted hair. Fever-bright eyes. 

Sherlock had cleaned up well. His hair had been clipped, shorter than it was in any of the press photos John had seen. His suit was clearly expensive, though oddly ill-fitting. He must have lost a good deal of weight during his ordeal. 

Two weeks. He was only two weeks removed from his brush with death. And he'd been undercover for years. 

_The last few years have instilled a sort of natural caution._

_Caution doesn't really go hand in hand with this sort of work,_ he'd said on the phone, his tone flippant, dismissive. Overly so.

Defensive. 

He'd been captured. Interrogated. Tortured. The very fact that he was walking around at all was nothing short of miraculous. 

How likely was it, really, that the first thing he'd set out to do would be to purposefully and utterly humiliate someone who had helped him?

"Look," John said, softening his voice. "Why don't we try this again, yeah?" 

"All right," Sherlock said, watching him warily. 

John nodded, breathed out. He flexed his hands, cleared his throat. Forced himself to continue. "Thank you," he said. 

Sherlock blinked. 

"I wanted to say that to you. I meant to, before. But." 

Sherlock shook his head slowly. "Forgive me, but I believe I should be the one thanking you." 

John shook his head, suddenly quite determined that Sherlock understand. "No, look. You want to know why I helped you? I was—I was alone. I'd been useful once, but not—ah—not for a long time. I was just going through the motions, yeah? Rubbish flat. Boring job. Limp." 

He saw Sherlock's eyes flit to his legs, note his steady stance. Watched the furrow reappear between Sherlock's brows. 

"Psychosomatic, of course." 

John lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Yes, fine, I suppose it was, but that's not the point." 

"I'd have caught that eventually," Sherlock said. "I _was_ a bit distracted the first time we spoke. Also, you were sitting down." 

"Just—" John huffed out another breath, shifted. The interruptions were not making this easier. "I had nothing to do. Nothing to look forward to. Every day the same, yeah? I was bloody miserable. You know that already, you deduced it yourself. But meeting you. Um. Helping you. It reminded me that there's more. Out there. Made me feel alive for the first time in years. It was good. And I owe you for that. So." 

It wasn't the whole reason, but it would do, he supposed.

_Real life is not the battlefield, Dr Watson. Though I suspect that's what you see when you walk with Sherlock Holmes,_ Mycroft's parting words. He'd not been entirely wrong. 

Sherlock stared at him. 

"You shot someone," Sherlock said, finally.

"Shhh," John hissed, glancing around. He dropped his voice. "Not just anyone, you know. An actual insane criminal mastermind." 

"Even more notable," Sherlock said. He turned away abruptly. "We should leave. They'll be looking to close." 

John huffed out a breath through his nose. "Did you really work a full shift?" 

"Just your table. The owner owes me a favour. Got him off a murder charge." 

"And this is how you chose to cash in your favour?" 

Sherlock shrugged, a smile once again twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Seemed like a good idea at the time." 

"No. Nope. Bad idea. Terrible. You know why?"

Sherlock shook his head, his brow furrowing up. He stared hard at John, as if he could not quite comprehend what he was looking at. It was strangely endearing.

"Because we're both still hungry," John said. 

"Are we?"

"Yes," John said firmly. 

This time Sherlock did smile, a slow smile, a real one. He glanced towards the door. "Come on, then. I know a place. Fish and chips. Open late." 

John smiled back.

*

They walked. 

The night air was crisp and cold. There was a smattering of stars overhead, and John found himself noticing them in a way he never had before. 

"They've cleared your name in the papers," John said. He'd finished his fish and was eating the chips slowly as he walked, carton cradled against his chest, licking hot salt from his own chilled fingers. 

Sherlock looked at him, his eyes difficult to read in the moonlight. "Yes." 

"Will you go back to—um. Detecting? Do you think? Or is the MI6 thing permanent?" 

Sherlock said nothing. Just gave him another one of those searching looks. 

John looked down at the carton in his hand. Ate another chip. 

"I don't work for MI6," Sherlock said, finally. "It was a means to an end. That's all." 

"Catching Moriarty?" 

Sherlock smiled at that, a brief flash of teeth in the darkness. "Dismantling his network. He discredited me, forced my hand. Clearly a direct approach wasn't working. So I faked my death, went at him from a different angle. He'd been on MI6's radar for years. They were eager to help." 

_Right up until they weren't,_ John thought, but did not say out loud. 

"So now you come home and just—" John hesitated, glanced at Sherlock and then away. "Pick up where you left off, then?" 

Sherlock did not answer. 

They walked in silence. John finished his chips, binned the carton. 

"More or less," Sherlock said, abruptly, shattering the quiet that had fallen between them. It took John a moment to reason out that Sherlock was answering his earlier question. 

"Good," he said, not quite sure how to respond. "That's—that must be something you're looking forward to, yeah? Put all of this behind you?" 

Sherlock looked at him again, his expression shifting in the shadows. 

"I've been gone too long," Sherlock said. He spoke matter-of-factly, his gaze a little distant. "I'll need to relearn London. Breathe it in. Feel every quiver of its beating heart." 

It was a strangely romantic statement to be delivered in such a flat tone of voice. 

John thought of the walking he'd been doing lately, the way he'd let the thrum and buzz of the city seep into his very veins. He thought he could understand quite well what Sherlock was talking about. 

"That shouldn't take too long," John said, keeping his tone light. "Genius like you, yeah? London can't have changed that much in two years." 

Even as he spoke he knew that wasn't quite true. The city had a beating heart, like Sherlock had said. It breathed and shifted and changed. Sherlock had come home to find that home wasn't quite the same anymore. The same thing had happened to John when he'd returned from Afghanistan. It had left him reeling. Floundering. Helpless and lost.

It had taken him a long time to feel right again. It had taken _Sherlock_ to make him feel right again. 

"I can't imagine living anywhere else," John added finally, when the silence had stretched on too long. He gave a little self-conscious laugh, looked down at the ground. "Not going to have much of a choice soon, but—" 

Sherlock's head snapped up and he fixed him with that unnervingly penetrating stare. "You're no longer employed." 

"Ha," John said. "No. Definitely not." 

Sherlock studied him for a long moment without speaking. Then he continued walking. 

John put his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders against the chill of the night. His breath puffed in front of him. In spite of the cold, he was not uncomfortable. 

Sherlock drew to a halt in front of a chemist's shop, stood for a moment peering into the bright window. It was one of the only shops still open. The surrounding storefronts were dark.

"Need to get something?" John asked. 

"In a manner of speaking," Sherlock said. He stared for a moment longer, a smile curling at the edge of his mouth. It was not a particularly pleasant smile—there was something almost startlingly feral in his expression. He strode forward, opened the door. 

John followed. 

They moved quickly down the aisle, and then Sherlock threw out his hand, stopping John in his tracks. 

"What—" 

"Shh!"

John shut his mouth, scowled.

Sherlock crept forward, sweeping his hand behind him to indicate that John should follow. They advanced slowly.

There was a young man in a heavy coat standing at the counter. He shifted from foot to foot, nervous, twitchy.

The cashier looked down at the register, and the man pulled out a knife. 

"All right, hand it over," the man said. 

John stood up straight, looked at Sherlock. Sherlock looked calmly back at him. There was a gleam in his eye. 

"That's the fourth chemist this week," Sherlock said. He took another step forward, gave the young man an unimpressed look. "Getting a bit desperate, it would seem." 

The cashier looked from Sherlock to the man with the knife. His face had gone pale. 

The man whirled around, brandished the knife in Sherlock's direction. "How do you—"

"Please. Anyone with half a brain could see the pattern. You've been robbing chemists across London for weeks now. Working east to west. Always shops with late night hours, low foot traffic. Easy to guess where you'd strike next." 

"Back off," the man said. He waved the knife a little wildly. "Don't think I won't hurt you." 

"John?" Sherlock said. He inclined his head. 

It was all the prompting John needed. He launched himself out of the aisle, neatly tackling the man to the ground. The knife clattered against the floor, skidding away. 

"You may want to call the police now," Sherlock said to the cashier. 

John put his knee on the man's back, pinned him easily. His heart thudded in his chest. He felt, strangely, like laughing. 

Sherlock stood looking down at him. He was not quite smiling, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. John found himself unable to look away.

*

"You knew that would happen," John said, later, as they left the shop. Police lights bathed the street in red and blue. 

"I'd noticed reports of a string of robberies in the papers," Sherlock said. "Easy enough to deduce where he'd strike next." 

"So that's what you do?" John asked.

Sherlock shrugged, but he looked pleased. "From time to time." 

"Fantastic," John said. He shook his head wonderingly, looked back at Sherlock. _You're amazing. Like nothing I've ever seen before,_ he did not say. 

Sherlock held his gaze a moment longer, then continued walking. There was a flush of colour high on his cheeks. 

"You had the timing all planned," John said, after a pause. He cleared his throat. "You knew exactly when we'd walk by." 

Sherlock shrugged again, did not look at him. "Just proving a point." 

"What point is that?" 

"You're uniquely suited to this kind of work." 

John barked out a laugh, stopped walking. "Seriously." 

Sherlock turned to face him. He was smiling, his eyes bright. "You're a doctor. A _soldier._ Very few people could have done what you did." 

"Tackle a scrawny junkie in an empty shop? I think you're giving me a bit too much credit—" 

"Not that," Sherlock shook his head, waved a dismissive hand. "You are the reason I'm standing here, John. You're the sole reason I was able to safely make it back to London. The best strategic minds in the country at MI6 were not able to accomplish what you did through sheer tenacity." 

John's face had gone warm. He cleared his throat, looked down at the ground.

"John," Sherlock said. His voice cracked. 

John looked up. 

Sherlock took two steps forward, crowding into John's space, gloved hands coming up to cradle John's face, mashing their lips together. 

John sucked in a surprised breath, his mouth opening under the unexpected assault. Sherlock's eyes were squeezed shut, his forehead creased as though in pain. His mouth tasted of salt and vinegar. His lips were soft, clumsy yet insistent. His fingertips pressed hard against John's skull, holding him in place. 

John belatedly brought his own hand up, palming the back of Sherlock's neck, sliding chilled fingers beneath the wrapped scarf to rest against warm skin. Sherlock shuddered, took a step back, breathing hard. He did not let go of John's head. 

"Um," John said. His breath steamed in the cold air. He found himself once again fighting back the urge to giggle. 

"I apologize," Sherlock said. His tone was flat, devoid of inflection.

"No need," John said, and this time he did laugh, the sound high and uncomfortably giddy. Sherlock was still standing very close, still had John's head cradled in his large hands. 

Sherlock breathed out hard, his breath tickling John's lips. He looked a bit dazed, his pale eyes unfocused. "You said," he breathed. "You said it helped, sometimes. To know that someone was there. Waiting." 

It took John a moment to process what Sherlock was saying. The conversation they'd had, the long night that had felt terribly final. John speaking until his mouth ran dry, Sherlock's laboured breaths coming over the line. 

_Sometimes it helps. That's all. To know that someone's there._

_You're there._

"Yeah," John said. Their faces were still very close. He breathed in. "I did say that." 

"You were right," Sherlock said quietly. 

John swallowed, nodded. "I'm—yeah. Glad."

It seemed absurd not to be kissing him after a statement like that, and so John tipped his face forward, brushing their mouths together again. Sherlock made a soft noise and tightened his grip on John's head. There was something at once chaste and frantic about the way he kissed. His lips were warm. His nose was cold. John stroked his back, noted that he was trembling under his coat. 

"Let's—" John said, leaning back, shutting his eyes as Sherlock chased his mouth. He put a gentle hand on Sherlock's chest, pushed lightly. "We should—" 

"Baker Street," Sherlock said. He blinked slowly, his eyes glassy under the streetlamps.

"Baker Street," John agreed. After a brief hesitation, he took Sherlock's hand, curled his chilled fingers against Sherlock's gloved ones. 

*

Sherlock was quiet as he unlocked the door to the flat. They went upstairs without speaking, stood regarding one another in the entryway. 

John cleared his throat, looked around. 

"I like your flat," he said, finally. "I don't know if I told you." 

"I assumed you found it agreeable," Sherlock said. "Considering you opted to stay." 

"Well. There was a murderous psychopath after me at the time. That does tend to colour one's perception." 

"Mm," Sherlock said. 

The air between them had grown tense, awkward. John shifted where he stood, unsure what to say. 

"John—" Sherlock started. 

"I have your key," John said. He reached into his pocket, withdrew the little key he'd taken from underneath the skull on the mantel. Held it out. "And your phone. I—um. Assume you want them back." 

Sherlock looked at the key in John's hand, did not move to take it. His face was difficult to read. After a long, quiet moment, he reached out and picked it up, his fingers brushing against John's palm. 

John slipped the phone out of his coat, handed that over as well. Watched a ghost of a smile flicker over Sherlock's face as he looked at it. 

"Well—" John said. 

"John," Sherlock said again. His voice was low, serious. 

John stopped. Looked at him. 

"I meant what I said, earlier." 

John tried for a smile. "Which part?" 

"All of it." 

"Okay," John said. 

"I've never had—I've never wanted—" Sherlock stopped, blew out a frustrated breath. "I work alone. Always have. Alone protects me." 

"All right," John said. He was glad he had not taken off his coat. He put his hands in his pockets, waited.

"I didn't know what it would mean," Sherlock said. "To have someone waiting for me." 

John blinked, took his hands out of his pockets. 

"Earlier, I told you that you were uniquely well suited to my kind of work," Sherlock said. 

John huffed a self-conscious little laugh. "Yeah. You did say that." 

"What I meant, specifically, is that you are uniquely well suited to me." 

"Oh," John said. His pulse roared in his ears. He thought he might be smiling. "Well. That's—good." 

"Is it?" 

"Yeah," John said. He took a deep breath, decided to take the risk. Stepped forward, cupped Sherlock's cheek in his hand.

Sherlock dipped his head, his mouth seeking John's. His eyes slipped shut.

"I wanted to see you here," John said, when they had parted to draw breath. It was easier to speak into the fragile space between them, the taste of Sherlock still clinging to his lips. "In your flat. It's so—it's—the thought that you might not be able to come home to this was—" 

Sherlock made a strangled sound, lunged for him again. He shoved at John, manhandling him down the hallway towards the bedroom. 

John laughed, caught the lapels of Sherlock's coat, kissed him again. 

The bedroom was as neat as John remembered it. Sherlock's bed was soft, the sheets crisp and new. 

Sherlock's body was warm under John's hands, thrumming with life. He took his time, pressed reverent kisses to sweat-damp pale skin. Gently traced still-healing wounds with his fingertip. 

_Alive,_ he thought. _He's alive. He made it. He's here._

"I'm here," is what he said, his voice soft and hoarse as Sherlock arched against him. 

"John," Sherlock gasped.

"I'm here." 

*

It was warm. 

John opened his eyes, lay staring at the ceiling. He'd slept well. No dreams. 

He was alone. He shifted in place, reached out to rest a hand on the empty space beside him. The sheets were still warm to the touch. He'd not been alone for long. 

He threw back the duvet, sat up. His back was stiff, his muscles pleasantly sore. 

He stretched the sleep from his stiff muscles, stumbled into the loo. He met his own gaze in the mirror. Smiled. 

Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table when John emerged. He looked up, uncertainty flickering on his face. 

"Morning," John said. 

"There's water for tea," Sherlock said. 

John went to the kettle, lifted it. It was empty. He turned back towards Sherlock, lifted his brows. 

"Well, you'll have to boil it first, of course." 

John snorted, shook his head. Filled the kettle from the tap and switched it on. When the water had boiled, he fixed two mugs of tea, set one down next to Sherlock. 

"Thank you," Sherlock said. His tone was overly formal, polite.

John sat down across from him. Took a sip of too-hot tea. 

Sherlock peered into a microscope. His hair was a rumpled mess, and John wanted to put his hands in it. He refrained. 

The room was very quiet.

Sherlock switched the slide in his microscope, his hands moving gracefully, precisely. Then he reached into his dressing gown pocket, withdrew something. Set it on the table. Slid it towards John.

John looked down. 

The key. 

"Sherlock," he said. 

Sherlock did not lift his head from the microscope. "Keep it." 

John picked up the key, turned it over in his palm. 

"You'll need it, since you'll be moving in," Sherlock said. 

John lifted his head, blinked. "Moving—? What?" 

"Rubbish flat, boring job," Sherlock said. He leaned back from the microscope, fixed John with that penetrating stare. "That's what you said. You've divested yourself of the job, now all that remains is the flat." 

"I can't just—" 

"Why can't you?" 

John opened his mouth, found he didn't have an answer. He sat back in his chair, took another sip of tea. 

"You like this flat," Sherlock said. 

"Of course I do. That doesn't mean I should just move in." 

"You like me," Sherlock added. The end of his sentence curled up slightly, not quite a question. He smiled, the expression hesitant, uncertain. 

"Yes," John said. He tried and failed to rein in a bark of laughter. "Yes, we've established that." 

"I have a tendency to charge headlong into dangerous situations without backup," Sherlock said. "Or so I'm told." 

John took another swallow of tea.

"You," Sherlock added, "are uniquely qualified to provide the kind of backup I need." 

"You make a convincing case," John said. He looked at the key. 

"Of course I do. I hardly need to try. It's obvious this is the correct course of action." 

John smiled, scratched at the back of his neck. "Sherlock, um—we hardly know a thing about each other. We met under rather unique circumstances, and—" 

Sherlock stood up, came around the table. "I think we know enough to be going on with, don't you?" 

John stared at him. There was a flush in Sherlock's cheeks that belied his confident demeanor. 

It was impractical, he knew. A terrible idea. 

Except—he'd been making so-called good decisions since returning from Afghanistan, and where had that got him? A rubbish flat and a boring job. Day after day passing in a dreary haze. 

And then Sherlock had appeared. And just like that, everything had changed. 

"Yeah," John said. "All right." 

Sherlock smiled. "Knew you'd say yes." 

"No you didn't." 

"It was obvious from the way you kept fiddling with that tea cup." 

"You're just making that up," John said. He stood up, regarded Sherlock for a moment. "Is this—" he gestured between them, "—on the table, too?" 

Sherlock blinked. His expression softened. "I hope so." 

"Good," John said.

Sherlock kissed him carefully, delicately, his hands coming up to trace patterns on John's cheeks. John hummed with pleasure, shut his eyes. 

Sherlock pulled back ever-so-slightly, his breath warm and damp against John's mouth. 

"Welcome home," Sherlock said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've reached the end of this silly little spy thriller. Thank you so much to everyone who joined me for this wild ride! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive any liberties I've taken with the way that GP web consultations are handled. This is, at its heart, a silly little spy thriller. (And, in my defense, the messaging system used in the original film was fairly implausible as well.)


End file.
